Story of the Year
by bergundy
Summary: Sometimes the third person sees the clearest, even if she's just a kid. Sakura and Sasuke, through the eyes of a genin.
1. Chapter 1

**Notes: **I have two chapters of _Consequence_ all written up but not typed, and I needed a break from all that dourness. So here is an OC, true, surrounded by many OC genin who graduate from the Academy. After I wrote it, I noticed a similarity between my narrator's name and the name of a main character of another, much better-written story. I can only say that I was thinking about Hiei's sister from Yu Yu Hakusho. That's the extent of my inspiration. Oh, and thoughts on the movie _Millenium Actress._ Take that as a spoiler if you like.

How is this even a SasuSaku story? If you've got the patience, please follow along with me.

(By the way, no Moping!Sakura here! …At least, not yet.)

**Disclaimer: **Naruto's not mine, although assorted parts of him are probably the legal property of Konoha and the Akatsuki claims everything left.

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Even though the Ninja Rulebook warns against taking first impressions too seriously, most instructors would probably take "Mommy! Help me!" as an indicator that their student isn't cut out for anything worthwhile, and proceed to write off said student.

This wasn't the case with my sensei, for which I am eternally grateful.

I met my future teacher when I was four, and I kicked and screamed for all I was worth when my mom brought me to her. The kicking didn't help me feel much better, because one of my legs couldn't move at all. Of course, I did my best to flail around with my remaining limbs.

The two adults in the room ignored me at the onset. Now I know that she wasn't _that _old when we first met, but to a four-year-old, everyone is ancient except for maybe other four-year-olds. Three-year-olds are just total loser babies. Like my brother.

"…Just fell from a roof, seems like a stupid dare that kids make each other do." My mom's quelling glare was the first acknowledgment of my presence that I received since we entered the sickly clean hospital room.

(Later on, I learned that my future sensei _had _greeted me with a smile and a wave, but I had been too busy yelling and flinging my arms and leg around.)

"S'not some stupid dare!" My mom winced at the sheer volume of my voice. I was totally embarrassing her. "I was training to be a ninja!"

At that, she came over. "Stop this nonsense, okay? Only really gifted people become ninja. And only very exceptional girls become kunoichi. So be quiet!"

You'd think it'd be obvious that my mom had some kind of huge disappointment in her past. She was trying to make sure I didn't experience the same let-down through these rather harsh words.

To a four-year-old, this means nothing, except that your own mother doesn't love you or have faith in you.

My mom began her profuse apologies to my eventual teacher. I just tuned out and started bawling. I was the biggest failure in the world since the kid who'd failed to graduate from the Ninja Academy five times and had grown up to be an old assistant to the chef of a ramen stand.

"Yukina…Yukina-chan." A gentle, large hand applied firm but sympathetic pressure on my shoulder. I blinked and paused to look up.

The first thing I saw was a huge expanse of forehead. I poked it, amazed. In retrospect, it's even more amazing that Sakura-sensei didn't kill me. The next thing my eyes darted to was her other hand, which was _glowing. Blue._

I flinched and tried to scoot back, but incredible pain shot up my dead leg. "Ow!"

That was when I looked up and met her eyes at last. They were kind of pretty, and I'm one of the best female judges of that in my year. They were a pure green color, darker than jade but softer than emerald. When I saw them as a kid, I already knew that those kind and friendly eyes belonged to someone I could trust.

I can still hear her say, in that low, clear voice pitched for my ears only, "Yukina-chan, don't let anyone tell you that you _can't _be what you want to be."

I don't remember exactly how I'd broken my leg – that wasn't the first time, and the fracture the second time around was supposedly tricky enough to merit the attention of the Hokage's apprentice.

I remember her wink, the confidential smile that my mother didn't see.

"_You'd make a fine kunoichi, Yukina-chan."_

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There's a legend rampant among the girls of the Academy that, each year, there is a guy to _die _for in class.

I can tell you right off the bat that this is false, because the guy to die for had graduated five years earlier. He was charismatic, kind of good-looking, and the very one who helped me get a swing on the crowded playground, just because he and his two friends were hanging around. Plus, he had the smile of a winner. His name was Konohamaru.

(Actually, his name _still _is Konohamaru.)

Boys that age, especially cool ones, don't give love-struck eight-year-olds the kind of notice they want. Which is very, very reassuring since if they did, that would make them quite the young perverts, but a crush is a crush and I had an incurable crush on Konohamaru, the grandson of the previous Hokage.

The fact that the object of my affections wasn't in my class by no means equaled studious, attentive Yukina. But geniuses don't need to be studious or especially attentive, and even though the wishful legend of a guy to die for each year isn't true, it _is _true that each year has its genius. That year, my class definitely had one. Guess who?

I'm insulted.

Anyway, it was this boy named Makoto. To be really, truly, absolutely honest, he was quite good-looking, too, and I'll kill anyone who quotes me to him. Unlike some of his family members, he didn't hide his face behind tall collars or glasses. The problem was, he was an Aburame.

Kikai bugs. _Icky._

I spent many of my Academy days daydreaming about Konohamaru. My class rank, when I graduated, was in the lower half of the spectrum. If I'd paid slightly more attention, I think I would have been in middle-to-top range. But then maybe the teams would have been different.

When genin are sorted into teams, the instructor takes one from the lower end of the spectrum, one from the middle…ah, this is common knowledge, so I'll shut up on that.

Waiting with my new teammates for our instructor to arrive was a nerve-wracking experience. For one, my teammates made me uncomfortable. One of them was a Hyuuga – Hyuuga Kurei. Not that he was particularly ugly, but his white eyes were just so freaky. The other one was Makoto.

Let me say something for myself. I have black hair and brown eyes, but absolutely no bloodline limit or family quirk. I _do _pride myself on speed because I can move really, really fast. But that's just training.

I'm the only normal unit in my three-man cell. Not to mention, the only girl, but I'm sure that was obvious.

Even though it felt like an eternity, our instructor arrived right on time, and I mean _exactly_ on the dot. When the door opened, I sensed the two boys next to me sit a little straighter. (I was in the middle, like a buffer for their testosterone.) A very familiar jounin walked in.

"Huh." She put her hands on her hips, looking a lot more intimidating and hard to impress than I remembered. "It's good to see you all." Then she continued across the front of the classroom. Before we knew it, she had disappeared.

Kurei was on his feet, chakra veins in stark relief around his strange eyes. Despite this, he appeared just as ignorant of where our instructor had gone.

Suddenly, her face reappeared at the window. "Are you asleep, you lumps? Let's go."

I tried and failed to suppress my grin, thinking that if Sakura-sensei wanted us to chase her, I would have the edge.

Kids have a lot of idiot thoughts like that.

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TBC


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes: **Wow, I'm on a roll.

An unsigned reviewer asked me the question of how old Sakura & Co. are. I think I left hints in the last chapter, but for those who are curious, Yukina is around twelve years old (immediately after graduating), and she's five years younger than Konohamaru, who is four years younger than Naruto's year. 12 + 5 + 4 21. So, Sakura and Friends is 21.

This chapter is the start of Yukina's forays into her sensei's business.

By the way, the Naruto ending song, "Michi – To You All," is fantastic. I love it.

**Disclaimer: **Derrhhh.

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Sometimes, despite all of my mom's dubious looks when I brought home the report card, despite all the ridiculous fixes that my brother Eiji gets me into, despite the _terrible,_ devastating lack of discounts on ice cream during the summer heat wave – I am at peace with life.

This just wasn't one of those times.

_Come on_, I thought, visually combing through the jumble of rooftops, chimneys, laundry and communication lines that made up the upper levels of Konoha. _Where on earth _is_ she?_ Suddenly, I had an epiphany. Turning to the left, I addressed my teammate. "Oi, Kurei, can you find her?"

"Shut up, I'm looking" was the snappish reply. I opened my mouth to retort, but shot a glance to the far right as I did it. Makoto stood alone on one of the slatted roofs, just above a nasty tangle of fresh laundry. I closed my mouth. If there's one thing that can make me go quiet, it's pride. I was not about to act like a whiny brat, and as soon as the Hyuuga found Sakura-sensei, I'd be off like a shot. Let no one be mistaken – I was in it for myself, and even though I knew I needed to work with the two freak-shows, I was going to make the best first – well, second – impression…

"Over there," said Makoto. By the time I swung my head towards him again, he was twenty meters away from his starting point. Kurei and I leapt after him, gaining enough distance to be hot on his heels.

Once Makoto was securely in sight, I told Kurei, "You've got to be the most useless guy with _special eyes _on this team!"

It was obvious that Kurei wasn't pleased with his own performance; a pink flush had stolen across his pale cheekbones. Yet he trained a self-righteous glare on me. "Says the one who barely graduated at the bottom of the class!"

I was more mature than that, so I ignored him in favor of keeping Makoto in view. Now that the teams had been sorted, though, my less-than-stellar class rank stung. Clearly the other two were thinking, _We got a stupid girl to be the weak link._ Unable to rein in my anger, I put on an extra burst of speed by kicking off from the buildings with greater force. Unfortunately, my momentary distraction with Kurei's insult made me barrel squarely into Makoto, who had chosen the moment I'd caught up to halt.

The sound I made as we toppled over is too embarrassing to recount in full, but "Aieee –" might be a good approximation. Preparing to flip over to land on my feet, I found myself dangling by the back of my shirt. Makoto actually swung me back up using the hand he'd thrown out to snag me from the air. His other hand had a firm grip on the side of the balcony we had teetered off. As he flipped himself back onto the rail with enviable grace, I felt like a total idiot.

"Thanks," I muttered, averting my eyes. It just so happened that Kurei had caught up and seen the entire incident of my humiliation.

Sparing me a smirk, he asked Makoto, "Why did you stop?"

"It turns out that I tagged a kage bunshin."

"When?" I blurted. His eyes flickered to me, then moved on to scan the horizon.

"I set a kikai bug on her when she showed up at the window." (At which point, I am ashamed to say, I started checking myself for bugs.)

"So we've got no lead at all," summarized Kurei. "Great."

"See anything, Hyuuga?" Makoto's tone showed that he'd taken the comment personally. Kurei scowled, hearing the low-key contempt that lined the question. Normally, I'd be fine with letting them blow steam off each other, but the hold-up was getting to me.

"Of course not," I answered snidely for Kurei.

"Shut up, you – you girl!" Like it was the worst thing that a ninja could be.

That was _it._ I lunged for him. Kurei slid out of the way below me. Striking the rail with one foot to redirect my momentum, I whipped out a shuriken and threw it at him. He twisted around and somehow disappeared from view. A shadow fell over me. I heard a shout and narrowed my eyes. God, did he think I was that easy to take out?

Moving as fast as I could, I jumped up and angled to the left, rising higher than Kurei as he descended. Time for a knee to the gut…

He saw me in time, the startled look on his face serving to piss me off even further. The upward jab of my knee struck air, a falling shuriken in Kurei's stead. My _own_ shuriken. I grabbed it and threw it at my educated guess of his location, turning around as I landed. It _pinged _off one of his. Barehanded, we ran for each other, he to avenge my "undeserved" attack, me for the sheer pleasure of hammering his face in for his stupid comment.

"Ahem."

It might have been Makoto, or even Sensei – now that I think of it, Makoto doesn't clear his throat to get anyone's attention – but only a super-sized ice cream truck could have stopped Kurei and me. We lost neither momentum nor killing intent, so it was with a sudden, painful jerk that I discovered myself dangling from an impossibly strong grip on the back of my clothes, for the second time of the day.

Kurei relaxed in false docility, but continued to shoot daggers at me with his eyes. Faster than thought, I spirited another shuriken out of my holster and hurled it at him from my awkward position. His yelp almost made up for the lack of impact. Any potential satisfaction I got, however, was dashed away by the rougher manner in which I was deposited.

"Calm down, you brats," ordered Sakura-sensei, her glare sweeping over the boys – Makoto, looking unruffled and disinclined to side with anyone, and Kurei skipping upright as if he wasn't breathing a little heavier – and lingering on me. Those eyes, they made me wince. Anger prompts me to regroup and bite, but disappointment is the most effective weapon in the arsenal that Sakura-sensei uses to make us all behave. The mild disdain in her eyes cowed my temper.

"While you were at each other's throats," she addressed Kurei and me, "your teammate successfully tracked me down. In other words, you're all an abysmal wreck of a cell." I saw Makoto stiffen in surprise at the indiscriminate criticism. "However…" Here Sakura-sensei looked thoughtful, "different situations call for different measures. As my own teacher used to say, look underneath the underneath." An oddly pained, exasperated expression crossed her face as soon as the words left her mouth. She shook her head, then said in a firmer, more energized voice, "Right. Let's introduce ourselves to each other _civilly. _On the roof."

We followed in silence to the rooftop of an apartment complex, all of us unhappy with the impression we had given our new instructor. Once there, Makoto made a clear effort to show he wasn't someone who abandoned the idiots of his team by not choosing the corner on the far right. Kurei and I sat next to each other, a one-point-five meters' width of no-man's land between us.

"When I point to you," said Sakura-sensei, "state your name, hobbies, likes and dislikes, and future goals or aspirations. I'll start. I am Haruno Sakura; Sakura-sensei to you. I like to study and memorize new jutsu and help people. I also like to spend time with my friends. I dislike moments when hot-headed people scream and fight for no good reason" – Kurei and I traded a furtive glance, but Sakura-sensei didn't seem to be specifically targeting us – "and I hope to prevent them from taking place ever again."

It was an odd answer for "future goals and aspirations," so I almost took that as an example of her dry humor, a warning couched as an introduction. I couldn't help but notice, though, that her voice seemed a little too somber when she said it.

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As fascinating as some people, nowadays, find Kurei's preference for simple daikon radish over glazed dumplings, and as much as I resented not having the opportunity to repay Makoto for his help and even the balance between us, I was glad to get away from the frustrating group.

Something I really don't like about myself is that I tend to be a brat. I _know _it. Sakura-sensei must have treated a thousand crybabies since me, but I'd thought she would at least remember me. Non-preferential treatment is good, but getting only a nod when Kurei received a polite inquiry after the Head of the Combined Hyuuga House just plain sucked. Makoto got a semi-significant look, not that he cared.

Ayame often tells me that I care too much about the stupidest things. Anyone aside from my best friend who repeats that statement so many times is looking to earn an eventual beat-down day. Happily for her, Ayame occupies that very special position. Plus, she knows me better than anyone else and could tell the worst stories in retaliation.

(Like all best friends, however, I've got a few good ones to hold over her, too.)

We met up after we were both dismissed for lunch. Remember that time I was four years old and thinking I was the biggest failure in the world since the Academy dropout who became assistant to a ramen chef? That was a bit harsh. The ramen really isn't bad at all, and it's relatively cheap.

Ayame and I sat down and ordered beef and miso ramen. While we were waiting, she shifted on the stool to face me. "Hey, so I heard that you got lumped into a team with bug boy." She winced in sympathy. "Tough luck, eh?"

I blinked, shoving the strange, unexpected urge to defend Makoto to the back of my mind. "Yeah, but I get the coolest teacher ever, Sakura-sensei."

"Oh, geez, I _know, _Yukina-chan! Student of the Fifth Hokage…at least my teacher has the cutest dog. Akamaru is so fluffy! And he likes it when I scratch behind his ears, but Kiba-sensei made me stop." She mock-pouted. Then her eyes widened. "Hey, isn't that your teacher?"

I spun around so fast that I nearly fell off my seat. _That _would have made a great third impression. Ayame grabbed my arm to steady me. While my stool wobbled to regain its center of gravity, I saw that she was right. Sakura-sensei, who hadn't noticed me yet, was heading in our direction with a tall, blond-haired, whiskered man in an orange-and-black jumpsuit. Everything about him was loud.

I recognized him, of course. Every kid's heard of Uzumaki Naruto. The problem is, we were never told whether to despise him or revere him. I've heard stories of his pranks that make him seem kind of cool and totally idiotic, but every adult who's ever talked about him seems to approve of his strength and determination, and yet shun him for some reason. Maybe I've only ever asked the wrong crowd. Anyway, as a kid, it's hard to take cues from others on how to act when the grown-ups themselves are confused about how they think.

Belatedly, I realized that it'd be kind of awkward if I greeted Sakura-sensei outside of teaching time. She was here with her own friend for lunch, and it was rude to stare. So I twisted to face the counter again, where steaming bowls of ramen had finally arrived.

"Yes!" Ayame split her chopsticks. "_Itadakimasu!_" We were incredibly hungry.

Out of the corner of my eye, I watched as Sakura-sensei and the Uzumaki fellow took their seats on the far right (Ayame and I being on the far left), bantering all the while. A fierce growl startled even Ayame into lifting her eyes. I shrugged.

"Oh _man_." Naruto was rubbing his stomach. "Hey, hey, I'm so hungry I could eat ten bowls without stopping. I haven't had ramen in so long!" Beside him, my sensei scoffed.

"Four hours is not a long time, Naruto-kun."

"Sakura-chan, you have no idea!"

I pretended to concentrate on my own food, because Ayame was raising her eyebrow at me for eavesdropping. "Like you're not doing it yourself," I hissed after swallowing a mouthful. She returned my earlier shrug and grinned. Truce made, we ate quietly and listened. Naruto's speaking volume made it easy for us, even when he appeared to make an effort to lower his voice.

"Just get him the chicken one."

"Why?"

"Because that one's tasty. And so we can pay him back for being late."

"You know he only orders the miso ramen…"

"But Sakura-chan –"

A menu slapped onto the hard, smooth surface of the counter. There was a sigh. "We're not ordering for him, Naruto-kun."

"Why not? I told you, I'll eat it before it gets cold."

"No."

"Please?" A whine drifted into Naruto's voice as he mangled the one-word plea until it spanned multiple syllables.

"You just want the ramen," Sakura-sensei accused.

"Well, yeah," he said honestly. "But he's going to show up. This time he will, I know it."

Another sigh. "We'll see, Naruto-kun."

"Yes!" I imagined a triumphant fist punching the air.

"…But it's coming out of your pocket."

"Aww…."

I glanced into Ayame's bowl. She was almost done. "Slow down," I whispered. Nodding, she started hunting single strands of ramen out of the broth.

Sakura-sensei and her friend's orders arrived. Naruto actually seemed to know the chef personally, as they chatted for the brief seconds that he took to separate his chopsticks. Sakura-sensei's back was turned towards me, but I saw her shake her head, apologize to the amiable chef, and start on her own food. For a while, there was only the sound of frantic eating and slurping – mostly generated by Naruto. Catching sight of Ayame's open-mouthed admiration and disgust, I elbowed her. "Obvious, much?" Ignoring the sting of hypocrisy.

"Sorry," she muttered. "How does that guy _do _it?"

I kind of understood her fascination, being amazed myself by how the man ate. No, he wasn't guzzling; he was _inhaling_. Sakura-sensei must have been hungry, too, because she finished early and started chasing the noodle scraps in her bowl like Ayame had. When Naruto moved on to his third bowl (which, when the chef's assistant set it out, had an aroma of chicken), she stood up. Sliding a closed hand onto the counter, my sensei said, "That's my end of the tab. I've got to go, Naruto-kun. Tsunade-shishou asked to see me earlier, and I still have paperwork for my potential team."

What? _Potential_ team? We _were _her team! I worried over this in my head.

"That bastard's going to turn up any minute, Sakura-chan. Hey, hold on –"

"It's fine, Naruto-kun. I just have to leave now."

I'm not the best people-reader, but even I could hear how transparent the reassurance was. It seemed that Sakura-sensei did better in that respect with children than with Naruto, who sensed it, too. "But, Sakura-chan…"

"See you soon." She was gone.

I felt kind of bad for the guy. Now he sat all alone on the far right. After a moment of staring after Sakura-sensei, he adjusted his grip on the chopsticks and resumed tucking in with a will.

"Hey, kids!" It was the chef, who had fixed a not-so-amiable squint on Ayame and me. "You don't get to loiter here. Pay up!"

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TBC: Yukina gets off her high horse and Eiji goes on a stupid dare, the kind that kids make each other do.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes: **I'm going to update as it occurs until the Doom arrives. So…Yukina gets to stay on her horse a little longer, because the chapter was getting too epic. (Read "long.") I just realized that Sakura would be pretty young when Yukina first met her, but let's just say that she had been apprenticed to Tsunade for a month or so already.

Trespassing is a crime, but I think it's less actively enforced in Konoha. As to how sadly un-Lionhearted Yukina is when faced with Sasuke, just think about how it is to be confronted by a local legend in the flesh.

**Disclaimer: **Waiting for Itachi to kill Sasuke and thus throw every single thing that's in my head into the realm of Alternate Universe.

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I went home to take a nap and then go train some more. No sooner had I shut my eyes, it seemed, did my mom shake me by the shoulders so frantically that I _couldn't _sleep. While I dug the heels of my palms into my eyes and mumbled, she informed me of the pressing problem.

"Yukina, your little brother is missing!"

"Huh?" It was only seven-thirty. But then again, I should explain something about my brother.

Eiji is only one year younger than me, but he's my polar opposite. I guess he was relatively well-behaved for a boy, but really he drove me crazy. I had to hide all my ninja equipment because our mom wouldn't let us lock our bedroom doors. Eiji was tall enough to reach the top of all the furniture in my room, and if not, he was resourceful enough to move my chair and stand on it. He liked to mess up my things by putting the kunai in the shuriken holster, making a headscarf out of my stock of rolled bandages…and he _didn't even want to be a ninja. _He's Mommy's Little Civilian.

Well, sometimes I respect him for trying to find his own way. But as I stumbled out of the house, still seeking the elusive clarity known as the state of being awake, I was in no mood to appreciate Eiji's independent drive. He was _never _less than an hour early for dinner, although in this case, my mom had probably overreacted.

I took a stroll through the usual places that little boys like him tended to frequent, doubling back to check the playground and unused training fields twice. I asked store clerks and discovered only that a young boy matching the vague description I gave had been last seen in the company of a gaggle of similarly-aged boys.

The sun was setting as I turned for a third patrol. My sweat was making the fabric of my shirt clingy, and my ankles had begun to ache. I decided that I could afford to lean against the wall of a shop on the corner – it sold poultry and dairy products of a caliber that fell short of my mom's standards – and catch my breath. A late-forties-ish woman was locking up the door. I thought about moving away because she looked irritable, but concluded that it wasn't worth the trouble.

"You, young girl – what are you doing here? Run along. Store's closed for today."

I couldn't ignore her sharp, shrewish eyes. She was one of those adults who believe that everybody under the age of thirty is a young ruffian and everyone above that age is an older ruffian and maybe even a closet pervert. "Excuse me, ma'am." My most polite tone failed to smooth the suspicious, mean crinkle from her face; still, I had to ask. "Have you seen a group of young boys pass by your corner today?"

She coughed, a scornful tilt to her graying head. "No." My heart plummeted. At this rate, I was _never _going home and getting enough sleep or time to prepare for my first full day in Team Four. "But I did sell two dozen eggs to a young boy. Seemed well-mannered, too," she sniffed, "before he headed downtown! What business does a child his age have there, _alone_, no less! Why do you want to know?" She added, if a little late.

"I'm, uh…I'm his sister. Probably…"

Giving me a glower that implied Eiji's pigheaded idiocy was all my fault, she turned away. "You had better collect your brother before it gets dark! Who knows _what _that young delinquent can get up to."

I looked down the emptying street, thinking about what the unsympathetic store woman had said. Downtown. Konoha's busiest sector, where several roads met and the main street veered down to a part of the village that I'd never been allowed to explore. At this hour, the bars and restaurants, which Ayame had described to me from the time her cool, older cousin had escorted her there, must be welcoming in the regulars. There would be lots of adults, lots of tall…intimidating people. And there would be Eiji, barely four feet tall, looking lost. With two dozen eggs. What on _earth _was he _thinking?_ Without further ado, I tore down the main street in the direction of downtown.

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Eiji wasn't just in the downtown area. He was somewhere infinitely worse. Somewhere known to _all _kids as the single most haunted area of Konoha. When I found him, he was shaking like a leaf, and you know what? I think I was, too.

Every normal kid has heard his fair share of ghost stories in childhood: the freaky shrine with an evil spirit that drives whoever spends the night there insane. The deep, dark tunnels in the bowels of Earth Country, where an overgrown demonic worm consumes unwary victims who rouse it from its lair. The freaky stories about the Kazekage during his formative years.

(They don't tell the last one anymore. It's not diplomatic, probably untrue, and our current Hokage got so angry when he heard about it that he – well, it's obvious to anyone who has dropped by the Hokage's office. It's still in repair.)

One place tops them all. Unlike all the mostly invented stories I knew, the legend about it was _true._ It was obvious from the way that even grownups gave it a wide berth. I think I know the difference between not wanting to trespass on private property and _fearing _to set foot on it…that is a difference that children are _very _quick to notice.

That street was at a junction, a handful of blocks from the municipal buildings and en route to downtown proper. While the crowds thinned out at other places and thickened near this end of the main street, no one strayed even by accident into that other, quietly abandoned street. The street that, as the story goes, is haunted by the dead of an entire clan. They were slaughtered by the greatest genius that had come from their family since the Second Hokage's time, and now they lingered in the dead, black windows, the shops with empty displays that never opened… their last survivor, a psychopathic recluse who had killed his own brother, the mass-murderer of his clan.

Among adults, that might have earned him some quality of redemption (no one mentions, I now realize, the part where he became a missing-nin to _hunt down _said brother). The younger generation, though, reasons with flawless logic that because he killed a psycho, he was necessarily an even crazier, scarier psycho.

Don't laugh, please. For a long time, I agreed with it, too.

So did Eiji. This would explain why he was shivering as though he stood in a strong wind on a snowy precipice instead of at the mouth of the branch street that led into the eerie, haunted part of Konoha called the Uchiha compound. From his left hand dangled a neon-green bucket of eggs. Two dozen, as I already knew. His knuckles were white around the thin metal handle.

"Eiji, what the hell are you doing?" Something about our location made me hiss this in an angry whisper rather than bellow at the top of my lungs.

"I need to egg…his…door." His voice didn't sound much louder than a seagull in Water Country.

"_What?_"

My idiot brother turned to face me with an expression of total misery. "It's a dare. I've got to do it."

"Oh my _God!_ How old are you?" I clapped my hands to my temples. "_No!_ You could _die!_"

Judging by his dejected posture, Eiji was deeply aware of that. He faced the Uchiha compound and started to walk. His voice wavered. "Yu – Yukina-neesan, tell mom that I love her."

I couldn't let him do this. Now, we both knew that I was much faster than he was, so I could just scoop him up and run like the wind until we got home. At eleven, he had put on some weight, but I was a _ninja_. I could –

"And if you try to pick me up and carry me out," he added in a tiny, guilty voice, "I'll scream. I'm sorry."

Dithering at the mouth of the street, I saw him reach the front door of the imposing, dark façade of the main house where the freaky lunatic lived, and set his bucket on the ground. I couldn't let him get killed without a fight! So I hurried forward, fighting the nausea and cold sweat that can only be instigated by a lifetime of ghost stories and superstition.

We stared at the front of the house. The windows opened to unlit rooms like ghastly, condemning eyes. Then we heard, from behind the house, the latch of a gate turn. It was _him._

Eiji gave a petrified little squeak. My heart shot up to my throat, pounding an erratic rhythm as I grabbed my brother with a hand clamped over his mouth and dashed into the narrow, dark space between one haunted house and another, on the side opposite the main house. We were so close that we could see everything. Our knees were quaking.

The forbidding door opened.

Out stepped the last scion of the Uchiha Clan. Eiji and I waited with baited breath. Even the sound of us _not breathing _seemed to draw the silence around the mad thumping at our chests. It was too late to slink even deeper into the narrow gap. The roofs extended and nearly met above our heads, leaving a silver of deathly light to trail along the middle of our third-rate hiding place.

The Uchiha didn't look as…wild as I thought the local bogeyman would look. Somehow that made it even worse. His black hair was parted in the middle to form long bangs around his face, but stuck out in the back in imitation of a crow's tail feathers, like an evil omen. His eyes, which were drawn with agonizing slowness to the road, were as dark as black coffee, like two pits in his pale face. I half-expected an eye-sized worm to poke its head out of one eye and slither back in through the other. Now I wanted to retch. The psychopath had no clear deformity, but his mere presence was paralyzing.

He was staring down at the most glaringly hideous feature on his gloomy, dusky street – the neon-green bucket of eggs. The beginnings of a moan twitched at the back of Eiji's throat. I squeezed his arm very tightly and he fell silent, my hand still clapped over his mouth. One whimper out of him could be the death of both of us.

I could see, at this distance, the man glare at the bright green bucket. The downward tip of his mouth proclaimed him _not amused, _an offense punishable by death. Just then, I heard the casual, soft slap of sandals on the ground coming from the junction where this street met the main road. A short moment later, I saw a sight that simultaneously raised my hopes and trapped me in greater terror.

First reaction: He wouldn't kill children in front of another adult, right? (No, wait, even the adults are afraid of him.) She wouldn't let him kill us, right? (She may be a grownup, but hello, adults are scared of him, too.)

Second reaction: Holy crap, my sensei is _not _going to approve of me being here. (And then, even worse –) Is she…in _league _with him?

Help!

All coherent thought derailed.

"Hi, Sasuke-kun." Sakura-sensei's friendly tone was the fulfillment of my worst nightmare. "Um…why is there a bucket of eggs in the middle of the street?" A restrained, uncomfortable laugh tinted her observation.

"They're not mine," said Sasuke flatly. I knew it – there was no mistaking the annoyance in his voice, but the lack of killing intent in it clearly indicated their familiarity with each other.

After a pause, I saw my sensei step _closer_ to the Uchiha. The light cheerfulness in her voice seemed to disperse with her next query, although her effort to sound casual was apparent. "We missed you today at Ichiraku. What came up?"

This brought up memories of my mom – whom I was unlikely to see again – asking the very same question. She doesn't ask _What did you think you were doing, being late/absent/stupid like that, _as normal mothers do. When she's angry, she towers, emanating a glacial aura that chills to the bone. This is the worst part of it, the anticipation before the volcano erupts – when she asks coldly, _Well, Yukina-chan? What came up?_

I mentally rifled through all my excuses. Extracurricular work. Training. A friend's mom's invitation that I couldn't refuse. Sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry. Very sorry, mom. Won't do it again. Please, have mercy!

"Nothing," said Sasuke in a voice of stone. Heavy, unyielding, and final. So he was the one that Sakura-sensei and Naruto had been talking about. He was scary. They wanted to _eat ramen _with him?

…_He only orders the miso ramen…_

I came to the disheartening realization that my sensei was a closet lunatic.

"Then why?"

In that instant, I became aware of the fact that this was a rather private exchange, and that _Sasuke _murdering me and my brother wasn't the only unpleasant outcome that could occur. I shifted my foot in discomfort. As fate would have it, the sole of my sandal scuffed an errant fragment of pebble against the dry ground. The unnatural silence of the street magnified the sound of its scraping a hundredfold. Eiji and I shared a silent, nearly fatal heart attack.

"Did you hear that, Sasuke-kun?" Sakura-sensei's head moved; if it turned one more fraction of a degree, she'd be staring directly at us.

"Go home, Sakura."

I had never been so grateful to hear a psychopath's cutting voice in my entire life. Sakura-sensei's tentative hand reached for his face. I winced, waiting for it to be amputated. But Sasuke stood still, letting her fingers glide down his cheek.

"Just go, Sakura." Almost, but not quite, sounding bored. I could tell from the way she withdrew that it had hurt her.

And then, the weirdest thing of all crossed Sasuke's face. It disappeared too fast for me to be sure, and my sensei, who was backing away with her face a dangerous ninety degrees away from my hiding place, must have missed it while she was blinking. Frustration, disappointment, even a sliver of hope laced her voice. "I suppose it'd be a waste of time for me to ask you to lunch at Ichiraku tomorrow." She turned away from him, preparing to walk back into the main street – maybe join the nightlife that I was never going to live to see. "Have a good one, Sasuke-kun."

It happened again. It lasted about as long as it had the last time, but because I'd seen it already, I felt certain. Uchiha Sasuke, the psychopath who had killed his own brother, looked regretful. Not just the _I wish I ate one less ice cream before dinner _brand of regret. It was the guilty, lonely variety that said he wished he could call her back, delay her, swallow every antagonistic, hostile word he'd said before. If it struck a chord with _me, _a terrified twelve-year-old, I'm sure it would have made Sakura-sensei return, but she didn't see it because he'd waited until he was a hundred-percent certain that she wouldn't see before allowing himself that second of weakness.

This was around the time that I realized that people didn't exist for me. Sakura-sensei wasn't just my teacher, and the village bogeyman didn't exist solely to frighten kids out of their skins. They were _people. _It was a very scary concept.

"Sakura."

Sakura-sensei – _and_ Eiji and I – froze at the unexpected sound.

"I never told Naruto that I was joining you for lunch."

"Oh, really?" A degree of hotness flashed into Sakura-sensei's voice. "That's not what Naruto said."

"Of course Dead Last wouldn't say that. Today while we were sparring, he said that if he won, then I would go to Ichiraku and have lunch with both of you. Obviously, he didn't."

I thought my eyes were going to bug out. "What about the other day?" My sensei's voice had softened a fraction.

"The other day, Naruto claimed that I was going to eat with you. I said _hm _to let him know I'd heard. I never said that I would."

Sakura-sensei turned all the way around and walked right up to Sasuke. Here, her voice dropped so low and quiet that I can only guess she said, "Then, Sasuke-kun, will you have lunch with us at Ichiraku tomorrow?" A yes-no question.

Reading his lips, I think he said, "Aa." His tone was reluctant and hassled, but I knew better.

"So you'll be joining us?" Her voice grew stronger. "Nod or shake your head, please."

Looking extremely annoyed, Sasuke nodded. At once, a sincere, warm smile wreathed Sakura-sensei's face.

"See you tomorrow afternoon." She walked away with a spring in her step. Sasuke watched her back for a few moments. By now, I've noticed that men's eyes tend to trail after my sensei. I think it's too early to get into that just yet, though.

As soon as she was out of sight, his eyes went straight to where Eiji and I were hiding. My stomach froze all over again. "Leave." He didn't even need to raise his voice to stab us with fear.

Trembling slightly, we crept into the faint moonlight. Sasuke's mouth curled. As if a dam had broken, babbling apologies flooded out of my mouth. "I – we're very sorry, sir, we didn't mean to – to – you know – uh – we're sorry!" _Don't hurt us, please_ would only remind him.

Before I could stop him, Eiji contributed to the inanity as I trailed off. "Um. Um – um – I – brought the – eggs to –"

"I know what you brought them for." His scowl darkened the heavens. I thought lightning and a peal of thunder would crack across the sky, and then he'd summon the rain to fall on our heads as he loomed over us. Glancing down, I saw that Eiji had been scared clean out of his wits. Unexpected courage flared to life inside me.

"Hey! He's just a kid!"

"He should know better." The frost in Sasuke's voice stole the warmth out of ten subsequent summers. My tendril of courage shriveled up.

"He's my little brother." I averted my eyes briefly from that stormy black glare. Eiji's upturned face as he stared with awe, love, and wonder at me gave me enough guts to raise my head. "He doesn't."

Perhaps I was looking too hard or delirious with fear. Hope for survival makes people imagine things. I probably imagined the softened look in Uchiha Sasuke's eyes until he said tersely, "I don't care. Get out."

"But –" Eiji didn't have a very strong sense of self-preservation when he was scared silly. "The eggs –"

"Take them with you."

_I _grabbed the bucket by its handle with my right hand and Eiji's wrist with my left. "Thank you so much," I said breathlessly before _getting the hell out of there._

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Once we were in a familiar neighborhood and I could breathe again, I snapped, "I guess your stupid friends will have to be satisfied that you talked to the Uchiha and _lived._"

Eiji's head bobbled. The bucket hung from his hands like a dead weight after I thrust it at him. We walked in silence for a while longer. Then he said, "Thanks…thanks for standing up for me, Yukina-neesan." Even in the dim light I saw his face scrunching up to fight off tears of relief.

"You're my stupid little brother." I ruffled his hair roughly and shoved his head away to ease the diminishing tenseness in my body. "You say that like I had a choice." A huge, heavy sigh expelled from my mouth. I was _never _going to get enough time to train and sleep to be in top condition tomorrow.

"Um…is mom mad at me?"

I thought about it. By this time, she must have gone ballistic. "Eh. Yeah." His chin dropped to his collarbone.

"She won't be – I mean," he corrected, "she'll believe me if I say I just bought the eggs because I wanted to eat them, right? I checked all of them against the light bulb like mom does. The yolks are okay."

Eiji's distant flash of random intelligence might not be enough to save him, but… "Just…don't even try to explain the truth." He nodded.

Our family ate eggs into the next century.

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TBC: Yukina is late for the test of her life.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes: **I originally responded personally to all the reviews I got, because they seriously made my day. Unfortunately, I had a mental spasm and just hit "reply" instead of clicking the response link. Ergo, I am just stating in here: Thanks to everyone who's been reading my humble fic! Especially you writers out there…I've read your work, too, and suffice to say, I'm honored that you took the time to read mine. (You know who you are.)

Last chapter was rather Sasuke-Sakura-centric. This one details an event of importance to Yukina for the majority of the chapter…because Yukina's life actually encompasses more than her sensei's life, and it certainly doesn't revolve around the (semi-existent?) relationship between Sakura and Sasuke. Haha, talk about irony! Anyway, there has to be some sort of compromise if I don't want Yukina to become a cardboard cut-out.

**Disclaimer: **Wow…Kishimoto pulled a really cheap trick on the whole Uchiha affair. At least Sasuke's homeward bound.

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People who don't think the beeping sound that an alarm clock makes is harmonious have never been woken up by my brother.

It starts with an insistent yank on the covers. I like to curl up in them against the perpetual cold – whether it's from Konoha's winters or the ridiculously low temperature at which both Eiji and my mom like to set the thermostat. And then, because Eiji knows that there isn't a single ninja reflex in my body when I'm in my own bed, he employs the most effective method of waking me up to date – Makoto's bugs, Kurei's painful jabs, and Sakura-sensei's disapproval included.

He doesn't really bother with words, knowing that language is beyond me when I go to sleep after two in the morning. Positioning his mouth right at my exposed ear, Eiji unleashes an inhuman half-shriek, half-roar. One can hear the populations of whole countries dying in that sound.

And because I don't have a single ninja-esque instinct when I'm in my own bed, and since I _was_ in my own bed that morning, I whipped my head around and was greeted by the awful sight of Eiji's crooked molars in close-up.

I screamed. Eiji went on screaming. A minute later, we ran out of breath and I could finally piece together enough words to form a coherent demand. "_What?_"

"Yukina-neesan," he said in a slightly hoarse voice, "you're late!"

I shoved my hair out of my face, not at all alarmed but infinitely annoyed. "Look, today I slept in an hour since my team doesn't get together until seven." I had set my clock to ring an hour later. Almost, I could feel a stirring of fondness for Eiji's selfless anxiety.

Nah. Too annoying.

Instead of being reassured, he started bouncing on the balls of his feet.

"Please don't be mad," he begged, "but last night before you came back in I thought you were in your room, so I knocked and looked in but you weren't there –"

"Get to the point."

"Your alarm clock's broken."

I turned my eyes to the display, which read seven-fifty-eight.

"I think it still shows the time," he explained, "but it doesn't go off."

While I screamed, Eiji dashed out of the room.

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I bounded into training ground number five. "…Hi."

Kurei rounded on me. "Look who decided to show up early!" Makoto said nothing, but a glance in his direction revealed ire strong enough to make me retreat a couple of steps, mainly because I had earned it.

"Hey, at least Sakura-sensei is –" A feeling of doom courted my mind. Delayed instincts told me to take two steps forward before turning around. Sakura-sensei has a very expressive face, so a lack of expression on it screams volumes about her mood. Especially when the serene impassivity of her features contradicts every rational reaction she should have. That's when the fear curling in the abdominal area seizes up and constricts. I've long since learned that, as a recipient, one can only bow in the face of her wrath and hope it passes quickly like a summer storm.

"Yukina-chan, tell me why it is important to be punctual."

I forced myself not to fidget as the calm green eyes stared down on me. "Uh…your teammates get held up."

Sakura-sensei gave the facsimile of an encouraging nod. "Another important result of lateness is that you lose time. Sometimes that means a difference between life and death. Do you realize that?"

The tone of her voice made me wish that Sasuke had been less merciful. "Yes, sensei."

"Because of you, Makoto and Kurei have lost time as well... not that they would be extremely inclined to help you or anyone else, considering the nature of this test. Follow me."

She turned and strode to the center of the grassy field. As my teammates surged forward, I whispered, "I'm sorry. I really am." Even Kurei only shot me a look. We halted several paces away from our instructor.

"Take a look around you."

My eyes swept past the foliage that bordered the field to rest on three wooden posts, generally used for taijutsu practice. A coil of rope and three boxes rested on the top of one post. On the middle post, like a reminder of the morning's misfortune, sat a ticking alarm clock.

"As you can see," said Sakura-sensei, "there are three bento boxes over there. One is mine. The other two are for the ones who can take _these_" a musical, tinkling sound drew my attention back to her "from me." Two silver bells dangled from the thin cords pinched between her thumb and forefinger. "The one who doesn't get a bell will be tied to a post and starve through lunch. I trust you all remembered not to eat breakfast as I told you yesterday."

Makoto was frowning. A quicksilver flash of rebellion skipped across Kurei's face before the look in his eyes hardened in determination. I just tensed. I'd forgotten her instructions, but in my haste, I hadn't had the time to eat anything anyway.

"Good. The clock is for you; I can keep track of time without it. You have until noon to attempt to gain a bell from me, at which point the alarm will go off." In a single, deft motion, she replaced the bells at the strap of her side pocket. "Your performance here will show me whether or not you are worthy to claim the status of ninja, or only good enough to play pretend in children's games. It is eight-twenty. Begin."

My reaction time was achingly slow, but at least I wasn't alone. All three of us stayed in place for a beat, fascinated by the sight of our teacher shredding away in the wake of a summoned wind. The next instant, I realized that it was genjutsu and scurried into hiding.

Dark. It was really cool and dark in the shadows underneath the tree boughs. Nothing moved. It felt as though I had been plunged underwater. Before the creepy sensation deepened into something more horrible, I formed a seal. "_Kai_."

The ambient light and unobtrusive noise of the forest returned. Quickly, I hunted for a better hiding place and – while I was at it – a glimpse of my sensei. A shout and the sounds of battle fifteen meters to the southeast prompted me to flip over the branch I was on and change course.

I had half-expected the sight, but a part of me still leapt in surprise. Kurei was trading blows with Sakura-sensei. When she blocked a forceful kick with an arm, seeming disinclined to return the favor, Kurei aimed another blow as he withdrew his leg. I had to admit that his taijutsu looked superb, and – what's more – the strength behind his strikes impressed me. Not that I knew that until Sakura-sensei redirected his momentum into a tree with a simple flick of the wrist. Kurei's hand didn't demolish the tree, but the force shuddered up the wide, solid trunk. Far from being discouraged, he dove back in to attack from Sakura-sensei's left.

As I watched, I noticed that my teacher repelled Kurei with so little effort that her location barely changed at all. This gave me an idea. Using the Body Flicker technique, I approached the scene of battle. My plan hinged on good timing; if I was one second off I could be eating Kurei's foot, which would be really painful, let alone smelly.

Sakura-sensei gave no indication of noticing my presence, although it was unlikely that she had not, even taking into account the speed at which I moved. That was a risk I had to take. Just as Kurei jumped up to deliver a blow from above, I made the last seal of the Earth Release, Inner Decapitation technique – not to fully trap Sakura-sensei, but to pull her far in enough to snag a bell.

My fingers closed around her ankle, but in a poof of smoke, she breezed out of my grasp. Biting back a frustrated growl, I glanced up to see Kurei descending.

I have this to thank the Academy teachers for: they really drilled the Body Replacement technique into my head.

But right then, standing across from a Kurei still panting from exertion, I realized that I had come as close as I could to grab a bell on my own. I wasn't so stupid as to deny that Kurei was the better frontal fighter, and I couldn't be the _only _one to notice the potential in forming an alliance.

Kurei raised his strange white eyes to mine. Just as I was going to speak, I felt a tiny, irritating sting on the back of my hand. It was a kikai bug. My frantic, repulsed shaking of the hand only led the bug to circle my head. Finally understanding its purpose, I nodded, to which the black insect responded by whizzing in the direction of cover. As I went after it, I saw Kurei moving in the same direction. We shot each other wary glances, but held our silences until we arrived at a small, dimly lit clearing.

Makoto dragged a sandaled foot over the grass to get our attention. "I have a proposition for the two of you."

Kurei rolled his eyes. "You mean _one_ of us. There are only two bells, remember, genius?"

"And if you listened to our sensei more closely, you'd figure something out, too." Before Kurei could bristle too much, Makoto continued. "She said that the _one_ who didn't get a bell would be tied to a post, leading us to assume that the _ones_ who gained a bell numbered only two. In other words, there are only two bells because that would divide us, but there doesn't have to be one failure."

"Yeah, well, I was _going_ to ask Kurei to team up with me," I said bluntly, earning a surprised look from the Hyuuga. "You probably don't need us to back you."

He didn't deny it, although he slanted his eyes towards me. "That's not the point. You shouldn't have to _ask_. We were a team when the Academy instructor grouped our names together."

"What gave you that idea? I know you weren't thinking that when we started." Kurei sounded skeptical, like someone who is slowly being won over.

"I saw how Yukina took advantage of the distraction you were providing. I'm fairly sure that it was no kage bunshin she caught, although Sakura-sensei escaped easily. If we make a coordinated effort, we should be able to get the bells."

Kurei stretched his arm, holding it behind his head by the elbow with his other hand. Smacking into that tree trunk must not have been a fun experience. "Fine. What's our game plan?"

Makoto nodded to me. "Yukina, you're faster than both of us over short distances, so she'll expect you to go straight for the bells. And Kurei… your taijutsu looks competent."

"It's called Jyuuken." We all knew that Makoto had sold us on the cooperating gig.

"Makoto…" He looked at me. Before it began to sound too stupid, I rushed on. "How much weight can your bugs carry, and how much initiative can they take after you give them an order?"

He cocked his head. I think it's safe to add Makoto's smile as one of the weirdest things I've ever seen, because while it fits just right on his face, it seems kind of misplaced at the same time due to its relative rarity.

"Enough," he answered.

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While Kurei engaged Sakura-sensei – whom Makoto's bugs had tracked down for us – in a reprise of his first battle, I moved in from behind. Predictably, our sensei shifted so that the brunt of my attack would hit Kurei. Using a combination of Body Replacement with Makoto's conveniently located kikai bug and another spur-of-the-moment Body Flicker, I reoriented myself out of Kurei's line of attack and within reach of the bells. She sensed my motion at once; a bare hand pulled me out of the air to throw me into Kurei, who tried to protect himself with his palms facing outward. The impact stopped my momentum, but hurt like hell.

"Damn! Sorry," I heard him say. I just bounded to the right and hurled a barrage of shuriken at our sensei. The action would have been more edifying had they hit someplace more useful than the side of a log. I put some distance between myself and Kurei, preparing for her reappearance even as I feared that we would have to look for her again.

"Yukina, your right!"

Kurei's warning almost came too late, as an explosive tag detonated at my side. Then Sakura-sensei materialized behind Kurei. "Behind you!" I shouted.

"No, behind _you!_"

The image of our sensei behind him winked out of view – it was a bunshin. I ducked as, with unprecedented coordination, Kurei pounced over me, driving her back momentarily. I replaced myself with a bug behind Sakura-sensei, intent on landing a hit.

The alarm clock went off. Without Eiji's voice to compare it with, the sound was jarring and frustratingly unwelcome.

Kurei and I backed off. Our sensei straightened her vest with an unconscious tug. "Now that we're all here" (I flinched in surprise when I turned my head and saw Makoto already there) "let's review the terribly disappointing results of this test. Makoto."

As we watched, the boy produced a single silver bell. Anger distorted Kurei's face. He looked ready to tear off Makoto's limbs with his bare hands. I merely stared, feeling numb and mildly crushed about it all. It hadn't sunk in yet that I'd be sent back, or worse – permanently rejected for ninja material.

"As Makoto took a bell for himself, it's clear that all of you have failed abysmally. None of you have the capacity to serve Konoha as genin."

"You're wrong, Sakura-sensei."

She raised her eyebrows at Makoto, looking truly disappointed. "What's that, Makoto? I did warn you earlier."

"I didn't try to get the bell only for myself. If that were true, why would I ask a kikai bug to sacrifice her life to muffle the other bell, after I already had one?" I had never heard him sound so bleak before. Sakura-sensei unhooked the second bell to examine it.

I felt that it was time for me to pitch in. "It's true, sensei. We worked together. We agreed that Makoto would stay at a distance so that he could help us with his kikai bugs." Kurei's impassioned assault and my persistent attempts had been the distraction, but the Hyuuga had almost forgotten that. Now, as I reminded him, the scowl fell off his face.

"That's right." He jerked his head at Makoto and said brusquely, "Sorry for doubting you, man." It was a rather confident, mature gesture, and the other boy seemed to appreciate it, because the corners of his mouth twitched into a smirk as he returned our sensei's gaze.

A heavy, dreadful atmosphere came over the field as she pulled on two black gloves, eyes intent and frighteningly violent. Still pinning Makoto with that awful glare, she cracked her knuckles and advanced on him.

There wasn't any time for reconsideration. Kurei and I moved at once, he blocking Sakura-sensei's approach on the right, his palm glowing the pale blue of chakra. I whipped out a kunai and a tag for good measure.

Like lightning striking a clear sky, the furious killing aura disappeared. Sakura-sensei grinned at us as we stood frozen in our guard positions. My heart had yet to slow down when she said the words that I had been training towards for nine years:

"Alright, I'm convinced."

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She set us taijutsu exercises to start on. While two of us sparred, our sensei took the odd one out to a side and handed over a scroll with a technique specific to each of us. When she called me over, she gave me a small piece of paper to hold. As the paper inexplicably turned to dust in my hand, she let out a "ha" of triumph. "That would explain why you executed that Earth Release technique so flawlessly even with your erratic chakra control." She noticed the slump of my shoulders. "I thought it would be useful for you to know, so that you can focus on improving in that area. We'll do some chakra-control exercises tomorrow. Hand." Fixing me with a serious look, she placed a scroll in my hand. "This is a C-class Earth-type technique. I forbid you to attempt it until after tomorrow's training session, but you'll be too tired anyway. Don't strain yourself, but study this in your spare time and make sure you understand the theory."

"Yes, sensei."

"Please call Makoto over here for me. You can spar with Kurei."

That was all well and good for about three seconds, until the one voice that could make my heart melt like an ice cream on a hot day called from the other side of the wire fence. "Oi, Sakura-san!"

Kurei gave me a solid thump in my moment of hesitation, throwing in a pointed glare in the bargain.

"Hold that thought." Skirting my annoyed (and fairly annoying) teammate, I jogged several meters closer to Makoto…who happened to be next to Sakura-sensei and therefore in close proximity to the one guy on earth worth dying for.

"Good afternoon, Konohamaru-kun, Moegi-chan." I assumed that my sensei was addressing the girl with the weird hair and flushed cheeks. She was totally ugly, if I say so myself. I think she was Konohamaru's teammate.

"Sakura-senpai! How are you?"

If she wasn't already on my black list, she was now. I allow people to admire my teacher because she _is_ the coolest and they can't help it, but no one gets gushing privileges. Ever. (And especially not some girl who already spends so much time in Konohamaru's company.)

"…Hope you've given up that stupid perverted ninjutsu." Sakura-sensei's face was turned away from me, but it sounded as though she was giving Konohamaru one of those scarily tranquil looks.

A warning sign that Konohamaru shrugged off with a blithe, heart-stopping grin. "Well, it's really fun to mess around with Ebisu-sensei's head, you know?" He seemed confident that his smile could dispel all potential anger, and I privately agreed.

"Seeing as your instructor isn't here and my new team is, I'm just warning you." I could sense by the tone she used that Sakura-sensei was relenting when Konohamaru's grin widened.

"I'm wise to you, Sakura-san!" He made a simple handseal, and quite suddenly there were two of him. "Behold!"

The rest happened so fast: the cloud of smoke that heralded a basic transformation technique, the annoying exclamation of "Konohamaru-kun!" from the Moegi girl, the two figures that were coming into view as the smoke began to clear.

"Oh my _God_, you freaking idiot!" In a display of ferocity that seemed uncharacteristic for my sensei, she slapped one of the dark-haired male figures. Just a slap, and yet the other bunshin poofed out of existence instantaneously while the real Konohamaru resumed his true form, just in time to crash into a very unfortunate tree twenty meters away. Both Konohamaru and tree plunged sideways into the darkness of the foliage. A few birds burst out of the leaf-swathed branches, flapping quickly to flee the scene.

"Sakura-chan! Why'd you hit Konohamaru, eh?" The new voice belonged to Naruto.

I've never seen Sakura-sensei turn that red again, although there are instances where she approaches it (such as when Kurei and I are being especially stupid). I think the issue in this case was that Naruto hadn't arrived alone.

Remembered dread woke in my belly when I saw who else was standing near Naruto. As I tried to figure out exactly how Konohamaru had set off my teacher, I could only summon the vague image of two adult men bared from the waist up. They'd probably been naked.

My face heated up before I quashed that idea. Konohamaru wouldn't do that! Yet _Sakura_-sensei had told him off for "perverted ninjutsu"…

One of the two men in the transformation illusion had looked an awful lot like the person who was hanging back from the scene subtly, with an expression so blank that instinct told me he'd seen and understood more of the earlier exchange than I had.

My sensei's face was still tomato-red. "It's all your fault, Naruto! You led that kid into perversion!"

Her tall blond friend retreated half a step in the face of her fury. "Yeah, well, he asked me to! He came to _me_, not –"

"Shut up for a minute, idiot." Sasuke came to the fore and leapt down from his vantage point at the top of the wire fence. Naruto followed suit, opening his mouth with the clear intention of conducting a (one-sided) shouting match. (Everything had started to seem a bit surreal to me, what with seeing Uchiha Sasuke in broad daylight, all the adults acting so normal around him, and Konohamaru executing probably very perverted techniques and getting smacked into trees.) "Sakura, why did you –"

Naruto interrupted, almost as if the thoughts that came to him did so violently that they had to gush out of his mouth the moment they occurred. "Oh yeah, Sakura-chan, why'd you stand us up at Ichiraku? You made me look bad, I was so sure you would show up. I told the bastard that I wouldn't eat ramen for a _week_ if you didn't, and you didn't! It was like he knew something." He lapsed into silence, looking inconsolably betrayed. Beside him, Sasuke's expression had taken on a somewhat deadly quality.

"Um…Naruto-kun…I did leave notes for both of you."

Naruto blinked. "Ah – you did? I must have missed it!"

Sasuke's acidic glance stated, _Clearly_. His pitch-black eyes went back to my sensei. "Why go through all the trouble when you were just going to cancel?"

Sasuke's question, I thought, felt kind of unfinished. It dangled at the end. Mentally, I tacked an "on us" after the "cancel."

"I don't consider talking to you any trouble," said Sakura-sensei. Her voice had gotten a lot quieter, but not really calmer.

"I wasn't referring to you when I said that."

As an uninvolved observer, I almost felt as though he might really be saying, _Come on, stand up to me. Fight me. _As Sakura-sensei's student, my hands formed fists in sympathetic anger. It was kind of obvious who was overreacting…Sakura-sensei had an obligation to Team Four that outweighed a casual lunch invitation. What was with all the venom?

If I was waiting for her to slap Sasuke into another tree, all I received was a disappointing anticlimax. "Sasuke-kun, let's have lunch tomorrow, the entire team together." Her voice sounded gentle and coaxing, more like the Sakura-sensei who had first mended my leg.

"Sakura-chan, I gave my word, remember?" Naruto's head drooped in his desperate unhappiness. "I can't eat ramen for a _week! _It's going to be _hell._"

"I'm sorry, Naruto-kun," said my sensei with near-perfect sincerity. "Sasuke-kun?" The warmth in her voice faltered. "Where are you going?"

"Away."

Sakura-sensei glanced to the side and noticed me at the worst possible moment. "Yukina." Her sharp look shriveled my insides. "Why aren't you training?"

One would think, with the way I was inevitably shooed off after each time I witnessed my sensei interact with her old teammates, that I'd learn to back off from stuff that was obviously none of my business…right?

Whoever believes that has clearly never been a kid.

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TBC: It's the stuff that gossip is made of…


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes: **It's like this story is bleeding out of my head.

Lots of ickle pairings in this chapter. Take it as implied, take it as the "canon" of this story, take it as it really is – gossip. I felt like they deserved a little nod. Also, the more I write the more like a Whistling Dog this story seems…but what the heck, it's fun.

(And if Ino snipes a bit too harshly, she's excused for getting carried away in my book. Plus the fact that she almost redeems herself as a friend later on. I think. In a part I haven't written yet.)

For Sakura, things have to get worse before they get better.

**Disclaimer: **Hn.

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_It's been a while since that incident. Sometimes, though, when I think back on that day and what I heard, I wish I really did go back to the Uchiha compound and egg his house…_

Every year, Konoha is usually working on one kind of massive building project or another. It generally entails repairing or expanding an existing structure, as the only new standing structures since the Third Hokage have probably been cenotaphs. Sakura-sensei once remarked that this was only to be expected, considering that two-fifths of the village population consist of pigheaded people who are professionally trained to take out solid targets. Any building less important than the Hokage's office and the ANBU compound are technically fair game.

This year, the hospital was being expanded. Most of the lumber and materials had to be transported from outside the village gates to the center of Konoha. In other words, grunt work. It was my team's first C-class mission to help out.

The day opened with bright sunshine and latent warmth that was bound to get on everyone's nerves later. A mild breeze weaved its way through gaps between the buildings lining the street. Taking a quick look around, I'd say that half the village was involved in this latest construction project, civilians and off-duty ninja alike. There _was _one perk to wearing a heat-conducting forehead protector aside from being able to laugh at the imaginary burn it left on Kurei's sensitive skin. People tended to be more careful about whether or not the space they surged forward to take in the busy street was occupied. It didn't matter if one was only a genin; no one jostled ninja except other ninja.

Speaking of jostling. Ayame flew out of nowhere in an attempt to hit me on the side. I shifted so that I only bore part of the impact before inertia carried her on towards Kurei. As I may have already remarked, for someone with special eyes, Kurei got short-changed in the observational skills department. Ayame crashed into him with less force and considerably reduced enthusiasm. This meant that neither of them toppled to the ground, but my teammate was far from thrilled. "Watch it," he snapped.

Ayame, who didn't know Kurei that well, mumbled an apology before moving to walk on my other side. "Yukina-chan, your teammate's scary." I just smirked.

"You should hang around this afternoon when I ask after his forehead burn." Provoking Kurei was almost always a rewarding and entertaining diversion. She considered my comment, looking pensive. "Why are _you_ here, Ayame-chan? Is your team helping out, too?"

"Yep. We're going to the same place to get briefed on how to lug super-heavy crates from point A to point B. My team is about five civvies behind yours. I should probably fall back." And she did. Glancing over my shoulder, I found her tall, somewhat intimidating sensei in the crowd. His famous, oversized dog was loping at his side, seeming completely at ease in the throng. As if feeling my gaze, the dog raised its head and said something to Ayame's sensei. The man picked his way through the five-civilian-deep barrier to greet my instructor.

"So, you signed Team Four up, too?"

She turned her head as he drew even with us. While Ayame fell into step beside me, Sakura-sensei smiled in response. "It's only right after all, Kiba-kun. I did work there for a while." An oddly wicked grin trotted onto her face. "How's Hinata-chan these days?"

Kiba's hand rose to scratch his neck; his face was too tanned for any blush to show, if in fact he _was_ blushing. "Eh…she says she's doing fine, but clan business eats up all her time."

"I'm sure she's handling it well," said my sensei bracingly. "She probably just needs the chance to straighten everything out, considering the recent merging."

Kiba lowered his voice, but I caught every word. "Do you think it'd be too early if I…?"

Ayame chose that moment to jab me with an elbow. "My sensei has a thing with the Head of the Hyuuga Clan," she told me matter-of-factly. "We think it's _love._"

I raised my eyebrows. "'We'?"

She waved a hand. "My team, duh."

"You talk about things like that with your teammates?" The last time I checked, both her teammates were male.

"Well, I talk, they listen. How's that?"

I glanced sideways at Kurei and Makoto, shuddering as I imagined _discussing _what I knew about Sakura-sensei's love life with them. Ick.

"Looks like a lot of people like to talk to your teacher," said Ayame. Sure enough, when I looked, a slender, blonde-haired woman had approached Sakura-sensei, while Kiba hurriedly peeled away.

"…Slacking off as usual." The woman enunciated clearly enough for us to hear. "I swear, some days he's just like a lump. The only time you can get him off his ass outside of missions is when Chouji offers to cook or if he gets it in his head to visit Asuma-sensei's kid….yeah, that's about it."

My sensei nodded. "Naruto-kun and Sasuke-kun are both on separate missions in Wind and Water Country. Sasuke-kun is due back today, though."

Hearing the magic word, the ugly little nosy monster inside of me perked up its ears. "Oh, _lord_." The blonde woman made a derisive sound. "Listen, Forehead, it's time to move on from what never was and isn't going to be. He's a total jerk and you've wasted enough of your life on him."

"You keep saying that, but you know I'm never going to listen."

"One can only hope the message will get through to your subconscious. But really," she persisted, "I bet he's never said a kind word to you."

"Of course he has!"

My sensei's face was looking a little pink, never a good sign. I cast my eyes in the opposite direction just in case. Ayame was unabashedly following along. I knew she wasn't my best friend for nothing – we're too alike to head each other off from bad behavior.

"Like what? 'You're a tiny bit less annoying today'? 'You're more observant than Naruto'? Because Naruto has the observational skills of a dead vole."

"No…he said 'thank you.'"

This sounded kind of lame, even to me.

"Right." The other woman threw up her hands in mock-celebration. (Yes, I was watching again.) "Hooray! The Uchiha knows _some _manners. Did he thank you for squandering your life on him and being at his beck and call?"

I could hear the dangerous note in my sensei's dulcet tones. "Drop it, Ino."

"Has he learnt how to say 'please,' too, when he gets the it –"

"You don't know the _first thing _about Sasuke-kun, alright?" Her hands had actually curled into fists. "He doesn't have to tell you what he means…" A brittle composure eased back onto her face. "He…he conveys it well enough. So lay off, Ino-pig."

Ino released a sigh, brushing her bangs out of her face. "So," she began in a different tone, "how's your new team?"

"They're wonderfully talented." My sensei sounded a little stiff, but relief was evident in her voice. I whipped my head around so that I was facing the front when she called, "Team Four, introduce yourselves." Makoto, Kurei, and I chanted our names to Ino. "This is Yamanaka Ino."

"Good morning, Ino-san…" And then we were at the eastern gate, where a mountain of lumber and crates awaited us.

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I felt a thrill in the pit of my stomach when I saw who was helping to hold the giant plank of wood in place for the man to hammer in the nails.

"Hey, Kurei, that looks awfully heavy. Let me take it off your hands," I advised. My teammate, who was beginning to catch on, rolled his eyes.

"No…I'm fine." Carrying two huge boxes of stuff in one trip, he started across the construction site. "Ask Makoto for a change."

I obtained a decent-sized load at the gate and rushed back, funneling some chakra into my legs. I was nearing the place where I'd last seen _him_ when I saw something that made me stop dead.

He was headed in the opposite direction, laughing his open, disarming laugh. Then he glanced with a weird, sudden shyness at his companion. There was… _something_ in the smile he shared with that stupid Moegi girl.

God, they looked _close_.

I ran past them, carrying my heavy load of lumber on legs that didn't seem so strong anymore.

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At around noon, Sakura-sensei stopped us for a lunch break. "You've been doing great, team. I haven't heard any reports of you complaining or slacking. I'm proud of you." Her simple words of praise gave me a sense of true accomplishment and almost made the crushing revelation I'd witnessed a little less painful. "So, as a reward, I'm going to treat all of you to whatever you want to eat, within reason."

Kurei and I cheered. Makoto took this in his normal, laconic stride. When we got ready to race to the food stands and restaurants, though, he said, "Sakura-sensei, can we buy our food and eat outside?"

Her eyes widened slightly in surprise. "Of course, Makoto."

That was how we ended up under the shade of a large tree near the old playground area. Most everyone else, including Ayame's team, had gone for a restaurant or booth with air-conditioning or the minimum requirement of a fan. For the time being, Sakura-sensei was the only jounin in the vicinity. A very odd feeling came over me as I watched her eat with perfect manners. She may have been our instructor, but nowhere in the job description, I bet, does it say that she has to stay with her students on lunch break no matter _how _much they want her company outdoors on a hot day. I still don't think there are really words to describe how much I appreciate my sensei for these small but significant gestures.

Kurei drew my attention with a pointed question. "What's eating you?"

"Nothing," I said shortly.

"If something's bothering you, just let us have it now before it kills your concentration when we spar later." He crammed the rest of his riceball into his mouth, his eyes making it clear that the query wasn't rhetorical.

"I was wondering what shade of nail polish would look better. Black would go with everything, but it's kind of excessive."

Kurei rolled his eyes for the hundredth time, filling his quota for the day. "Yukina. Please. I'm not _that _stupid."

"Oh really! Which one are you then?"

"Cut it out." Makoto was valiantly trying to enjoy the peaceful scenery. We put our sniping on hold, more out of boredom than respect for his feelings. Still, as the eldest and most mature one of us, Makoto's opinion had started to carry some weight, not unlike an older brother's.

After a moment, I got up and plopped down on the grass next to my sensei. I did need to talk to _someone _about it, but I'd die before letting Kurei know that he was totally right on that count.

"Yukina-chan?"

"Can I tell you something?" I said quickly.

"Sure."

"I…" If I dragged it out, the ordeal was going to be twice as tortuous. "I like this guy, but no matter what I do, he's never going to notice me."

"That's probably untrue, Yukina-chan."

"But I mean…" Curling a blade of grass around my finger, I yanked it out of the ground. "He's way out of my league."

"Don't think that either." My sensei sounded very firm about this.

"What should I think, sensei? Sometimes I look at him and it seems like I just…came along too late, you know?"

Sakura-sensei tilted her head, as if thinking seriously. Her calming green eyes came to rest on my face. "Well, no matter what happens, I have faith that you'll find your way, Yukina-chan. Even if it's not a path you expected to walk. I _know _you can achieve what you want, but you can't keep preparing yourself for disappointment if you want to get there…does that help at all?"

I blinked. Weird…but it did. "Thanks, Sakura-sensei."

She gave me a rueful smile. "I wish you all the best in getting this guy of yours, Yukina-chan."

The same to you, I thought. I didn't dare to say it aloud, though.

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It just goes to show that my wishes are worth a bucket of crap (or maybe two dozen ill-fated eggs) because my sensei's relationship troubles didn't get better, they got worse. Within the same day.

Since it was one of those days that started out hot but cooled off in the evening, all the hospital windows were open. To those of us outside the building, it seemed about as sudden and unexpected as a hailstorm in June. Ayame, who is very well-connected, has it from her aunt's friend's cousin that it had been building up for thirty minutes.

The story goes like this.

Uchiha Sasuke came back from his mission with his eyes bleeding. Apparently he had been using some obscure bloodline limit and pushed himself too far. He was rushed to the emergency ward, and as soon as she got the memo, my sensei hurried there, too. Ayame's source, who works as a nurse in that wing, reconstructed the exchange as best as she could – meaning that Sakura-sensei said something, Sasuke said something else, and one way or another Ayame's aunt's friend's cousin got kicked out of the room. All anyone outside the room could hear were their voices, not the actual words they spoke. Sakura-sensei's voice grew louder and louder. Sasuke's voice grew colder and colder.

Then there was silence. The nurses in the corridor were laying bets on whether or not the two people in the room were kissing, it was so quiet.

The rest of Konoha knows what followed the silence. I heard it all – everyone within a one-mile radius did. It was awful. There wasn't even the sounds of objects being broken, just the terrible shouting that seemed one-sided but clearly wasn't. It was my _sensei's_ voice, branding the words in my memory.

"Look, I never asked you to love me. I never asked you to care about me. I asked you to care about _yourself._ This is not about how weak you think I am! You always say I'm weak or annoying or useless, but it's not about me – it's you. God, I am so sick of this! No, I'm sick of your _attitude_! Don't patronize me, Sasuke, we're not kids anymore! Why are you like this? I'm only trying to help you!"

The shouting isn't the lowest point of the story. For Sakura-sensei's friend, Ino, it might even have been the high point. The lowest point is after Sasuke stormed out of the room. When he arrived at one of the hospital exits, Shizune-san, the Hokage's aide, stopped him and implored him to go back up because Sakura-sensei was crying her eyes out.

Sasuke looked her in the eye with his recently healed ones and said, "I don't give a flying fuck." And then he just left.

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TBC: Spring is not the season of love.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes: **I have the feeling that the end of vacation will affect my mentality about this story, so I'm just letting it flow and updating as it comes. I would really like to finish this.

Personal boring stuff aside… to put it in the words of Prabaker from the book _Shantaram_, you must have it a bit of sympathies for Sasuke. People don't always say what they mean. Not that this means anything, haha...

I apologize for the above drivel. (More drivel below.)

Anberlin's "Never Take Friendship Personal" gets a mini-ad here.

_In a sense gone, never take friendship personal  
If you can't hold yourself together  
Why should I hold you now?_

**Disclaimer: **Let's see how many syllables this can take and go from there.

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All too soon, it was too cold to train outdoors. Sakura-sensei made sure that Team Four got enough time in an indoor arena so that we wouldn't fall behind in comparison to the other genin. Makoto, who was – in general – the most stoic of us, took the drop in temperature the worst. He refused to admit it, but I think it's partly because of his symbiosis with a horde of chakra-eating, climate-sensitive bugs. Add to that the fact that Makoto was born on February 16, and my teammate is a pretty miserable guy.

I don't remember exactly what we got Makoto that year; maybe a set of razor-sharp knives or something equally lethal. As I was leaving the house to round up Kurei, Eiji bumped into me from behind.

"Watch where you're going," I snapped. Then I realized how early it was and stepped in his way. "Hey – where _are _you going?"

Eiji, who had yet to hit his much-needed growth spurt, shuffled his feet for a minute before finding the nerve to meet my accusing stare. "I'm visiting a – my friend, okay?" I could detect a rebellious note lining his sullen answer.

"Huh! Don't come back crying. Mom will throw a fit!"

As both of these things had happened in the past, Eiji's face flushed a darker color. "I wasn't going to!"

I narrowed my eyes. "What's so special about your friend that you have to visit him at six-thirty in the morning?"

"He doesn't have _any _friends…'cept for me." He ducked under my arm and slipped outside into the chilly air. I watched him hurry down the street, wondering in a fleeting, mean-spirited moment who on earth would be so desperate as to depend solely on Eiji for friendship. I regretted that thought, of course, as my brother _had_ been less annoyingly in the way of late. This was around the time that I suspected he'd picked up a stray cat (our mom had a no-pets policy) and wasn't telling us.

I met up with Kurei outside a stationery shop that had yet to open. Figuring he'd know more, out of the two of us, about the totally illogical wiring of a male's brain, I told him about the morning's run-in with Eiji. "What does a boy his age have to do this early in the morning? He's so messed up." Kurei rolled his eyes. One of these days, his eyeballs are just going to fall out. "Fine," I said grudgingly, "but this is different. We're visiting a _teammate._ I'll never understand boys!"

His snort of contempt made a great, cloudy puff of mist in front of his face. "Feeling's mutual about girls."

He'd walked right into it, of course. Two days ago, an anonymous admirer of his had taken advantage of the popular holiday to give him a box of really nice chocolates and a hilarious note, and for those two days I hadn't let him live it down. His face had turned all kinds of amusing colors.

Today, though, I decided to let _that _rest. "No, really, boys are much harder to get because there's no reason to what they do. If you follow a girl's train of thought, you'll find a perfectly rational motivation behind it."

"Bah," said Kurei. "That's crap."

"Oh yeah?" I was warming to the topic. "Then explain why that Sasuke-jerk still hasn't apologized to our sensei after she healed his eyes! What a total _loser_."

Usually, Kurei's ridiculous comeback would start right…about…now. Instead, the sound of our sandals scraping the ground was all that greeted my ears. I stared hard at Kurei, who was frowning down at the road with a fixed concentration. There was something _off _about his silence that spoke for more than ignorance. "Kurei…" He looked off into the distance, trying to ignore my warning tone. "What do you know? Spit."

He let out a sigh, shoving his hands into the pocket at the front of his shirt. "This is just what I heard my cousin say, alright? So don't pitch a fit at me."

"I _never _pitch fits."

"Hn. Whatever."

"Get on with it! Please," I was forced to add when he smirked.

"The thing is…Sakura-sensei _didn't _heal his eyes. She stopped the bleeding and made sure they wouldn't get worse, but Sasuke has a bloodline limit that involves his eyes. He needed the chakra veins around it repaired, too. But Sakura-sensei refused to do that for him because he wouldn't promise not to strain his eyes again."

"So?" That sounded perfectly reasonable.

Kurei's brows furrowed a bit more. "Don't you get it? That means he has to wait anywhere from five months to an entire year until it's healed properly. He can't even use his bloodline limit because that would make it worse! Sakura-sensei was his only hope and the Hokage won't help him."

"Why," I snapped, "are you taking _his _side over our sensei's?"

We traveled in stony silence to the Aburame house. "I'm just saying," Kurei said at last, "that I'd be pretty pissed if someone else _chose _to deny me the use of my Byakugan for a year."

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The largest of Konoha's parks were packed with people in late March, so that it was almost impossible to walk down the adjacent section of the main street. In her intuitive kindness, Sakura-sensei gave Makoto, Kurei, and I an early dismissal from training to enjoy the event that celebrated her namesake.

All the cherry blossom trees were in full bloom, and the park looked incredible – if there weren't so many people, I'd be even happier. But everyone wanted to revel in the scenery, and a few artists set up where they could observe the branches decked out in soft pink. Ayame pulled me out to a less-crowded area at midday.

"I've got something to confess."

I blinked at her. "Who's trying to kill you now?"

"No one! Oh, look, I –" She scowled as a tall, inconsiderate adult bumped into her. He was a chuunin, though, so she didn't bother to yell at him. "The thing I hate about flower viewing," she said, echoing my thought, "is all the people. Let's go somewhere else."

We went to the Hokage Mountain and stood on the First's nose. The park was very far away, but the cherry blossom trees were still visible in all their glory.

"I wish my hair were that color," said Ayame. I laughed.

"I wouldn't. It's a terrible color for ninja…only Sakura-sensei ever pulls it off."

"I guess." She lowered herself into a sitting position, careful not to mess up her yukata. "Are all of you going to watch the show downtown today?"

"'All' of you?"

"Your team." She waved an impatient hand. "My cousin says the geisha outdid themselves last year in their dance performance."

"Maybe." I didn't know about Makoto or Kurei, but my mom was pretty uptight about the whole district. "Hey, what did you want to confess again?"

"Tell you later," she said evasively.

After gorging myself on yakisoba and mochi, I looked around the village for my mom. Predictably, she was choked in the congested streetful of flower-viewing enthusiasts. Squeezed in next to her, Eiji looked very glum. I think I said I was very sorry for him, because then an evil gleam entered my mom's eyes.

"Yukina-chan, if you look after your brother, you can go downtown for the show. Come on, be a good girl." With that, Eiji was foisted onto me.

I groaned. It's only fair to say that he didn't look ecstatic either.

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This was the latest that I had ever been out on this side of the village, barring the time I had to retrieve Eiji from real stupidity at the Uchiha compound. In fact, every time I went near the downtown area – twice so far – it seemed to turn into a Where's Eiji? episode.

Not that it would come as any surprise, but I ran into Ayame, who looked as though she was going to explode if she didn't tell me her secret. "Okay, what is it?" I said. Her grip on my arm had gotten rather painful when she used it to haul me to the side of the road.

"I have a crush on your teammate, Hyuuga Kurei," she blurted. At that moment, someone choked. I turned all the way around and saw Kurei behind me, looking as though he'd been about to voice a greeting. Ayame blanched.

This was awkward with a sustained second syllable and a grace note at the end.

I eased my arm out of my friend's slackened fingers. Kurei was still blinking – in shock? In horror? I couldn't tell. Ayame's face was going through the color spectrum.

"Yukina-neesan!"

I knew I kept Eiji around for something. Grabbing his wrist, I tossed out a cheery "Bye!" and fled down the street. They wouldn't hurt each other…probably.

"Where the hell did you go?" Now that several pockets of people and vendors separated us from my troubled friends, I felt the need to siphon off my tenseness on someone.

"I was visiting. A friend." Eiji's bottom lip was thrust out in his most childish pout.

"Right, whatever. You don't get to run off whenever you want, okay? You could get hurt." His stubborn expression relaxed a little. "Or worse," I added, "mom could kill me." He laughed. "Not funny!"

"Um…Yukina-neesan…where are we going?"

I froze.

I had led him straight into the disreputable bar area of downtown or, as my mom liked to put it, the District of Depravity. Eiji and I were by far the shortest people in the vicinity. I don't know if anyone shares this sentiment, but being surrounded by taller people deals a serious blow to my self-confidence. Sounds of raucous, uncontrollable laughter drifted into the street from opened doorways. The yellow-orange light of hanging lanterns threw bizarrely elongated shadows on the ground. A cigarette butt landed millimeters away from my foot, the end still glowing red.

Fortunately, when the main street only goes one of two ways, it's kind of impossible to get lost. "Let's go," I said. Eiji nodded, and we strode as fast as we could without breaking into a run until we were clear of most of the younger-to-middle-aged adults who hung around that place.

A breath of clean, fresh air wafted into our faces from a side street. Glancing over in vague curiosity, I saw a figure walking along the abandoned road. My gut clenched. If my sensei ever told me to kill him, I'd do it in a heartbeat. What a jerk.

Eiji was tugging on my arm with the totally irritating tenacity of an eleven-year-old. "We should get out of the way," he muttered.

I stepped out of the mouth of the branch street, standing to the side to watch the Uchiha pass. He walked by us – and all the other people – without a sign of acknowledgment. Viciously, I took heart at the moody, almost tired expression in his dull eyes. Why was he going downtown? He probably didn't have any friends to celebrate the season with anyway. Then I remembered the bars, the clinking sound made by cups and bottles. Oh.

It was like another self, that little beast in me which liked to gossip and hear everything about my sensei's personal life, even – or especially – the ugly parts, took over me in that moment. "Let's follow him."

Eiji pulled his wrist out of my grasp, eyes full of accusation. "That's wrong, Yukina-neesan."

"Fine," I said, disgruntled that my idiot brother had to choose this moment to rouse a neglected conscience. "Go home ahead of me if you want. You know the way."

"I'll tell mom you didn't look after me."

I bent down to his level, leaning my hands on my knees. "Squirt, I could tell so many stories about you that mom will never let you out of the house again to visit…what was your little friend's name again?" His face crumpled in impotent anger. "That's right. Run along, now."

He did, depositing a nicely-sized mound of guilt with me. Pushing my little brother's disapproval out of my mind, I headed back down the street. Sasuke's tall figure with its sticking-up hairs was easy to find. Keeping him within sight, I slipped back into the night crowd.

A lot of times, I've found that the most awkward and embarrassing things I've witnessed come with an instinctual, prior warning of "Don't look." I usually do, which is why I know that it's true. It's hard to explain this to smarter people who treasure their innocence over their curiosity.

At first, I didn't see anything. Sasuke stopped before a brightly lit bar. The constantly moving people just flowed around him, like a river will around large rocks in its path. I wondered why he wasn't going in. He paused there, looking in the direction of an alleyway. It wasn't one of those trashy cul-de-sacs that one sees in the poorer villages, either. It actually looked relatively wide for a gap between buildings, and the lantern light hanging off the front of the bar illuminated a surprisingly clean path. One of the buildings cast a dark, slanting shadow on most of the alley.

My eyes were used to the bright light; they didn't immediately see what Sasuke was looking at. He walked a few steps closer to the mouth of the alleyway and stopped. Trying to be unobtrusive, I sidled a little closer without leaving the general crowd.

"Get your filthy hands off her, Hyuuga."

I flinched as my sensei and a relation of Kurei's stepped out of the shadows. Both of them gave Sasuke very cold stares. When Sakura-sensei moved forward, there was a slight sway in her step in contrast to her usual gracefulness.

"Let me show you something interesting, Sasuke-kun." The endearing suffix twisted over on itself in her voice. She raised her hands, palms out as if to show him some kind of imaginary stain or blemish on them. "Filthy hands." Very deliberately, she turned around and placed them on the other man's shoulders, tilting her head up to kiss his jaw. The Hyuuga's eyes didn't leave Sasuke for one second.

They were going to fight.

I _really _shouldn't have followed him. I was embarrassed for my sensei, who was drunk, and terrified for myself. I had never expected to see something this ugly, but I wasn't the only observer; more grownups, both civilians and ninja, had come out of the bar to watch the scene. A cruel, magnetic force was drawing people from both ends of the street to stop and stare.

"What's going on?" A woman pushed her way through the gathering crowd for a view. It was Ino. I saw her eyes widen before she dove back into the bar.

"You can't kick someone around all the time and expect that she'll always come back."

I had never in my life been able to fear Kurei. Sure, his eyes were freaky and he could beat me senseless in taijutsu practice more often than not, but he couldn't make me go cold all over. This Hyuuga made me shiver even when his white-eyed glare wasn't trained on me.

Sasuke's lip curled. "I suppose you would be the expert on that." The Hyuuga moved away from Sakura-sensei and circled around so that he stood at one end of the street, Sasuke shifting to face him. The Uchiha didn't fall into a fighting position at once, insulting his opponent with his disdainful eyes and the relentless straightness of his back. It felt as though all the noise and activity of the busy street had been sucked down a tunnel, reduced to the quiet, menacing breaths drawn by these two men.

I didn't see which of them moved first – only that Sasuke's form blinked and then disappeared. The Hyuuga had also winked out of sight. Immediately after, there was a pale flash, chakra hitting chakra with the intent to kill. A strange electric quality charged the air. The sudden light threw both of them into sharp relief. Sasuke's hand appeared to be wrapped in tails of white lightning. For one horrifying instant, neither of their faces looked human. Then the Hyuuga moved his arm in a slashing arc, expelling a wave of blue chakra that forced Sasuke's hand off-target. Sasuke dematerialized in a cloud of smoke and reappeared ten paces away, his hands blurring as they formed seals.

My sensei took a step forward, the kind that precipitates a leap. For me, it felt as though the world was ending. "Your fight is with me, Sasuke!" The syllables slid into each other in a noticeable slur. She raised her fist.

And then time stopped.

Sasuke and the Hyuuga continued to face each other, one crouched to spring, the other frozen at a tiger seal. But Sakura-sensei, who had been about to leap at Sasuke, stumbled and was forced to land in an awkward position on the ground.

"That's enough," said a slow, drawling voice that nevertheless held a certain amount of anger and disgust. Everyone who had been watching the fight unfold turned their heads to find its source. Not three meters away form me stood a man clad in jounin uniform, his hair pulled back tightly in a high ponytail. He held his hands together in a seal. The combatants' eyes moved to glare at him. For a brief second, the light of the street lanterns glanced off Sasuke's irises to illuminate a completely unnatural color, the deep liquid red of fresh blood. The next moment it was as black and bottomless as I remembered.

At the sound of the jounin's voice, I returned my gaze to him. Behind him emerged the slim blonde figure of Ino, who had gone back into the bar to fetch him. "Being sloshed isn't an excuse to brawl." He turned his frown on Sasuke. "Neither is being an Uchiha. Break it up. Do you really want to make a scene tonight?"

He separated his hands – too early, I thought, but both men straightened. Sakura-sensei swayed in a troubling manner as she got to her feet. As if by reflex, Sasuke started towards her even before the Hyuuga did.

Ino stepped in his way. The golden lantern glow highlighted her face and the glacial blue of her eyes. "_I'm _taking her home." She put one of my sensei's arms over her neck, bracing against the unresisting weight. When Sasuke didn't move, she raised her chin to meet the taller ninja's eyes. "Stop acting like you have a right to care, Uchiha." Scathing contempt laced her voice. "After all, you don't give a _flying fuck _about her."

"Ino…" began the jounin who had stopped the fight. Ino didn't spare Sasuke a glance, but as she reached the edge of the dispersing crowd, she raised her head.

Maybe it was the light glancing off the metal of my forehead protector. Maybe everything about me at that moment screamed of guilt. She stared straight at me with recognition, and the full force of her adult contempt lashed me in the face.

"What are you, a voyeur? Get out of here. If I catch you stalking your sensei again…"

I turned and fled down the street. It wasn't the longest distance I had ever traveled from one point in space to home; nor was it the fastest that I had ever gone, even if it felt that way.

No matter how fast I ran, though, I couldn't outrun the shame I felt for being there.

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TBC: When your best just isn't good enough.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes: **No Sasuke in this chapter – which, by the way, goes a little slower – but trust me, it's necessary. Parts of it kind of are, anyway.

Chapter 7: In which Sakura-sensei almost always gets the last word.

**Disclaimer: **If I owned it, I'd know what the blue-haired woman's name was. (Edit: Just read chapter 368. Whoa.)

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"Team! Come over here for a minute."

Makoto and Kurei had been doing their very best to pummel each other senseless. When I had finished my own assigned chakra control exercise, I had started to flick weapons at my teammates. Surprisingly, Sakura-sensei had overruled Kurei's protests, saying that both he and Makoto had a natural talent for sensing changes in their environment and should take the opportunity to hone it. Makoto's dodging became a part of his fluid movements, but Kurei was forced to make several awkward jumps to avoid them.

Our sensei's voice put an end to the fight. My teammates withdrew and I fell in step behind them as they walked towards the three posts where Sakura-sensei waited. It wasn't unusual for her to critique our individual progress – despite the fact that she sometimes looked absorbed in her paperwork, she was _always _watching – but today as she stood up, she held only one scroll in her hand. So either it was a technique she wanted us to learn as a group, or something completely different.

One week after the flower viewing festival, I still had trouble meeting my sensei's eyes. She didn't treat me any different, so Ino had not ratted on me, but still... I had nightmares about the day she would find out.

"Remember all the fun you had recapturing the hutch of rabbits last time?"

Kurei and I groaned. Makoto kind of sagged in resignation. That was a mission scroll, then.

"Well, I'm sorry to say this, but we're not going to do that again tomorrow."

I saw Kurei's head snap up so quickly that it must have given him a crick in the neck. "Say what? What's our mission, Sakura-sensei?"

"We are going –" She unrolled the scroll with a dramatic flourish, "to the Land of the Sound!"

"That's great, Sakura-sensei!"

She raised her eyebrows at my eager exclamation. Kurei, that hypocrite, gave me a weird look. I was overcompensating. I decided to shut up.

"The Village of the Sound has sent our Hokage a request to form an alliance. We will be bringing Konoha's reply to them. It's a four-day trip to and from the village. You have a question, Makoto?"

I still can't figure out how she knows, because Makoto never looks like he has questions about anything. "Sakura-sensei, I heard that shinobi of the Sound have attended the chuunin exams in Konoha before. But it's not one of the five great Hidden Villages, is it?"

"No, it's not. A few decades ago, a former Leaf-nin by the name of Orochimaru went to the Land of the Sound and tried to establish himself as the Otokage. It's not recognized as a Shinobi Country."

Makoto nodded. Kurei interjected, "Hey, isn't that one of the Sannin people? I've heard his name before."

A wry smile touched Sakura-sensei's lips. "You heard right. The Fifth is one of the Sannin, and the other one is Jiraiya, whom Yukina in particular should avoid when she's older."

"The Hermit Pervert! I thought our Hokage was kidding," said Kurei. He seemed elated by his own in-depth knowledge.

I was still kind of afraid (read: totally ashamed) about what I had witnessed a week ago, but curiosity gave me courage. "Jiraiya and the Hokage are alive and here in Konoha…what happened to Orochimaru?"

A slight frown passed over my sensei's face. "He was killed by Uchiha Sasuke. Not that he didn't have it coming to him," she said breezily, and then changed the subject. "Tomorrow I expect you to have packed everything you think will be needed for the journey. Be at the northern gate by six-forty. We will set off at seven-sharp."

Kurei smirked at me. "Hear that, Yukina?" I stuck out my tongue at him.

"Right, team…a little maturity from you all…" We stopped at our sensei's dry tone. "Any more questions? No? Then you're dismissed."

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Excitement is kind of hard to sustain when one has been trotting through a forest all morning. Makoto, Kurei, and I made an attempt to look lively whenever Sakura-sensei glanced back to check on our progress, but each time our chipper answers got a little less sincere. After her latest check on us, I started glaring at the trees ahead, which seemed to go on forever.

"Yukina."

I looked at Makoto. "What?"

"Don't strain yourself. We have another day of this."

"I'm not beat," I snapped. "I just _prefer_ to sprint over short distances."

With surprising wisdom, Kurei did not comment.

We halted at a copse around noontime. Sakura-sensei supervised us as we set up traps with wire, tags, and strategically placed kunai, securing the area before we settled down to eat. My ration bar was warm and lumpy.

"Not what you expected, hm?" said Sakura-sensei. We shook our heads. "We're not even out of Fire Country yet. I think it'll take half a day longer than I estimated…"

"No." Kurei flushed as his involuntary pronouncement drew her calm green stare to him. "I mean, we can make it in two days, sensei."

"I'd rather travel at a speed that's comfortable for everyone." I hoped she wasn't thinking of me when she said that. "It's important to pace yourselves. This isn't an urgent mission, and the only reason why it's B-class is because it goes into Sound Country."

"Would it be B-class if we were to go to River Country or Wave Country?"

The subtle approval in my sensei's eyes used to make me glow. Now my insides just squirmed. It felt as though I had stolen it dishonorably. "Not necessarily, Yukina. But Konoha and Oto have a history."

Technically, I figured, every shinobi village had _some _"history" with each other after the Third Secret War and all. So Konoha's history with the Land of the Sound just meant a slightly more emphatic warning to keep an eye out for enemy ninja.

When night fell, we were still just within the borders of Fire Country. It was the farthest I had ever been from home. I wondered whether Eiji was treating his cat right, or if Ayame had worked out something with Kurei. I glanced over to the left, but Kurei's gormless sleeping face told me only that if I woke him for anything less than life-threatening danger, there _would _be life-threatening danger. Makoto, on the far right, was turned away from me in his bedroll. I sat up, letting the blanket slide to my lap. The fire was plenty warm enough. Across from me and on the other side of the inconstant, orange flames, sat my sensei, the only one of my team who was awake. Barring me, obviously.

"You should get some sleep, Yukina-chan."

But I couldn't. "Sakura-sensei, have you been here with your team before?"

Nothing that is green in the daytime looks green at night – not the forest, not the grass, and not my sensei's eyes. Her eyes were dark and kind, capturing something of the firelight. They also looked a little confused. "I'm just curious," I said. Plus, I couldn't sleep. Not that that was her job by any stretch to deal with either of these "problems." God, I was such a stinking brat.

"You could say so." She paused. "One of my teammates was already there. He'd been there for two years at the time."

It must have been that freaky psycho, Sasuke. I still did hate him for hurting Sakura-sensei, but the fight I had witnessed had mellowed out the feeling a little. I mean, I was glad he had stopped that Hyuuga from…you know….and my sensei from doing other stuff while she was drunk.

"…So there are still probably a handful of ninja who remember him in the Sound." She gave me a small, patient smile. "Now I've answered your question for the night. Even if you can't fall asleep at once, you should lie down. It does help."

"Thanks, Sakura-sensei." I flopped onto my back with a faint _whump_, and in his own bedroll, Kurei stirred and wrinkled his nose in annoyance.

"Goodnight, Yukina-chan," she said.

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The next day was just all-out plodding. If it sounds monotonous, believe me, that's nothing compared to how it was. I was determined to prove myself a competent ninja after the night before, and so refused to snipe at Kurei. I'm pretty sure, though, that competent ninja don't actually take such boring missions. Well, Sakura-sensei was with us, but she was our instructor.

The change in scenery wasn't much to marvel at, either. The trees grew sparser until the sky opened before us on a wide, grassy field. Then the grass thinned like the hair bordering the forehead of Iruka-sensei back at the Academy. We entered a weird-looking valley with high, bare walls of rock. Maybe even a really old, gigantic statue and an adjacent body of water. For reasons that will become clear later, I don't remember much about the Valley of the End even with the return journey, and I haven't gone on another mission into the Land of the Sound. Kurei, though, swears that two ninja armies must have met up for a beat-down day in the valley, because that's the way it looked to him.

Once we were out of the eerie rock formations, we were well shot of Fire Country. "It's half a day further to the village," Sakura-sensei told us. At once, I stopped my ever-so-subtle lag and picked up speed.

"Oi, Kurei, looking forward to sleeping indoors?" The local bugs had favored his arm in particular last night.

He opened his mouth, but our sensei cut in. "We may not stay the night, Yukina, if it can at all be avoided."

"Why not?"

"It may not be officially recognized as a shinobi village, but there are still shinobi who live there."

I vowed, for the thirtieth time, that I would not whine.

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We arrived at the first rice paddies in the early evening. All this time I had been expecting the kind of walls that Konoha had, bristling with fortifications and the odd sentry or two. Maybe something that looked just a bit more military.

I could only blink at the total anticlimax that greeted my eyes: neatly arranged rectangular sections of earth and shallow water, where rows upon rows of little green, sprouty heads poked above the surface. A few slowly-working farmers wearing traditional, wide-brimmed hats and the sound of slightly opaque water sliding down the irrigation canals completed the idyllic scene.

"Wow…" Kurei, too, seemed to struggle to voice his thoughts. "Rice fields."

Sakura-sensei didn't turn, but her voice drifted back to us as we followed her on the simple dirt path. "Before Orochimaru renamed it, this was actually called the Land of the Rice Fields."

Very creative, these founders of countries.

Field succeeded field as we walked further into the Land of the _Sound_. Eventually, we came to the gate of an enclosure that didn't look like it'd stand up to one of Kurei's gentle taps. Even so, Sakura-sensei made us wait until a villager admitted us. He gave me, Makoto, and Kurei a look that made me think he'd agree with the woman who ran the poultry-and-dairy store.

People stopped to watch us pass. I was used to being invisible, mainly because I was either just a kid or just a genin – either way, not very tall. Their attention made me uncomfortable. Twice – when they didn't look away fast enough – I was surprised by the latent, hostile wariness on their faces.

"Eh…Makoto?"

His dark eyes flicked once to me to indicate that he was listening.

"Why do they look like they hate us?"

His shoulders raised and lowered in a tiny shrug. "History."

I took more interest in our surroundings. There weren't any of the well-kept, attractive shop fronts that I would expect to line the main street. The villagers, who walked faster when they noticed me watching, wore plain clothes of solid, earthy colors interspersed with the occasional faded red or dull green. I glanced down at their feet. Dusty, thin sandals with the soles almost worn away. The hems of their pants were as high above their ankles as mine, but while mine were tailored that way, theirs looked frayed and often stained. I saw a narrow alley behind a vendor of cheap rice snacks, shadowed and narrow and stuffed full of bags and crates of refuse.

These people…they were incredibly poor.

I rubbed the hem of my long shirt between two fingers. It was like we were parading in front of these people with whom we shared a "history." There was a _history_, all right, in every dirty glare they shot at us, most of all at Sakura-sensei, who ignored them. Look at us, we're from a rich country that fought yours long ago, and look how you ended up. Funny, eh?

Not.

I was glad we weren't spending the night.

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Everything in this village was different, but Sound and Fire were so close that the stars looked basically the same. Sakura-sensei let us stop for onigiri after delivering the message. The rice stuck in my throat; for some reason, it was kind of hard to wash down. Didn't taste exactly great, either.

"Yukina, you need to eat one more," said Makoto.

I glanced at Kurei, who had been acting just as subdued as I was. "Kurei, there's another riceball. Eat it."

"It's yours," he argued. "We each had two. You need to eat one more."

Sakura-sensei didn't say anything. She was letting us sort this out on our own.

"I know."

And then I was crying. Not an all-out sob-fest, because I could see Kurei's horrified dismay quite clearly. "Ah…Yukina? You're not angry, right? So…just eat it. Or I'll eat it. I don't care, really."

"Sorry." I swiped the back of my hand across my eyes. It was already over. "It's not a problem, I was going to eat it."

It was a little hard to polish off the riceball when even Makoto was observing me with a tense expression. Even when I was done, my teammates didn't relax. "You can stop staring now," I said. "I was just feeling depressed about the villagers."

"Sometimes," muttered Kurei, "I forget that you're a girl. Ow!" His stare changed from concern to indignant anger as he rubbed his ankle. I grinned; he looked much improved already.

After Sakura-sensei paid for us, we slid off the stools and started for the road. As I made to go after Kurei, she put a hand on my shoulder.

"You have a good heart, Yukina-chan, but don't try to pity these people. They have their pride." When I glanced up, there was an odd smile on her face. "Ready to go?"

I nodded fervently, not knowing that the next time my sensei said this, she would be coughing out blood.

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TBC: Old, unfamiliar enemies.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes**: 1) This was never intended to be an epic, so if there is a certain amount of letdown there's nothing I can do about it, because the identity of the enemies was almost incidental. The main goal of the attack was the end result. (Which unfortunately might not be revealed in the following chapter.) 2) That this will most likely become AU.

**Something Very Strange**: In a good way. "Kawarimi" by asteriskjam is worth reading to everyone who wants to know the darker side of Sasuke's past (which Yukina is not privy to). It's strange because asteriskjam is a really good writer with whom I have no connections, and it's like she read my mind when she wrote this. Yeah. Because I could never write something like that. But I love that it was exactly what I was thinking of.

**Disclaimer: **Of course I own it… Notice how Neji is getting _so_ much screen time in the latest chapters.

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A half-moon hung in the clear night sky, lighting our way back. There was something about the still, reflecting water in the rice fields and the chorus of disembodied crickets that gave the village outskirts a quality of lethargy…or maybe it was just my natural inclination to sleep off what I had eaten. It was a drowsy temperature, too, mildly humid; the heat of the sun was just beginning to lift.

We hadn't even left the last rice field behind when the scuffing of sandals against the packed dirt path made my sensei halt. As I turned I suddenly noticed how on guard Makoto seemed to be. There was an angry hum in the air around him, and I could see one or two kikai bugs hovering and circling near their host in agitation.

The messenger from the village – just a kid, really – rattled off his news. "Otokage-sama has read Konoha's message and regrets not being available to receive you in person."

Sakura-sensei looked at the messenger with unreadable tranquility. I felt the first stirrings of fear; even though I had no idea why my sensei and my teammate were so tense, in general I trusted their instincts more than my own. Kurei was wide-eyed and looked just as confused as I was. "Is that the message that the Otokage sent you to deliver?"

Under her serene gaze, the messenger boy relaxed a little. "Otokage-sama also requests that you stay where you are for a few minutes' wait, so that the Sound's reply can be delivered to you. Sorry for the inconvenience."

"I see," said my sensei. "Thank you." The boy bowed and then hurried back the way he came. Sakura-sensei, her eyes still watching the road, ruffled Makoto's hair in an uncharacteristic gesture of affection. Uncharacteristic, because all of us knew that Makoto had a very defined sense of personal space and our teacher was never less than considerate. A moment later, I felt an odd prickling sensation on the inside of my wrist. When I turned my hand over, the kikai bug deposited a small brown pill in my palm. It was a soldier pill, the kind that ninja ate to pull all-nighters on missions. I'd never had one before. Feigning a cough, I swallowed it.

"Let's go," said Sakura-sensei.

We were running this time. The rice fields fell behind while the path went on and on into the moonlit night. A sense of terrifying anticipation knotted my stomach as I kept up easily with my teammates, energized by the pill I had just taken. Sakura-sensei showed no sign of slowing even when we broke into the woods. The leaves on the tree-tops stirred a little, but to someone from Konoha, it was like walking into the forest of the dead.

"How rude."

The foreign voice sounded explosive in the quiet. We halted, Sakura-sensei in front of us. The little light that filtered through the thick foliage was pale and ghostly, falling along the outlines of a silhouetted figure. The newcomer stood in our way where the path rose in a gentle incline. Nothing beyond that point could be seen. Maybe it was the hour or the lighting, or the way this person slouched, but the friendly, conversational tone that _he-she-it_ employed only set my teeth on edge.

"You should always respect the wishes of the Kage of the village you visit." The voice sounded masculine, now that I paid more attention to its timbre instead of my fear.

"Nothing good ever came from people who styled themselves Otokage." My sensei's left foot shifted back, and with that subtle change in stance, the tension in the air doubled. "The village of the Sound has no Kage." Every word she spoke was sent out like one might throw a shuriken to test the darkness. "It only has an administrative council."

"Whatever," said the man with startling flippancy. Then he tilted his head – the silhouette of his head – and the dappled silver light fell squarely on his face, revealing an impossibly wide grin of extremely sharp teeth. It was like someone had ripped out the teeth of some monstrous fish and fitted them into that grotesque smile. "I _told _her it was stupid," he said, "but she never listens to me – or anyone, for that matter. Not since he dumped us all and left us for dead."

"What do you want?"

Even after he heard the calculated contempt in my sensei's voice, his tone didn't change. "Hm….what do _I _want? I want to get some shut-eye. _She _was just going to hurt your little genin trio and rough you up a bit, but now that she's seen you…well, she's probably still throwing her hissy fit."

This man was scary, overtly familiar, and totally annoying. I wished he would go away, but that wasn't likely. I'd settle for my sensei beating him to pulp.

"…After she told me, I got a little curious myself…" He raised his hand to reach for something behind him, and I realized that the huge, distorting shape there was a giant bladed sword. It looked incredibly heavy, but the strange man hefted it with one hand.

"Momochi's zanbatou," said Sakura-sensei. Her black fighting gloves were already on her hands.

The man treated us to another unsettling grin. "You got that right. I was going to bring the other one, but I figured, ah, what the hell, this'll do fine."

"Makoto, Yukina, Kurei…" I nearly jumped at hearing my sensei's low voice just behind us when I could see her standing in front. "Go around."

As if we had timed it, we moved on the same breath. Kurei and I dove into the dense shelter of the trees with a Body Flicker; the resulting rustle crashed onto my ears. Then I heard a loud, clumsy pop on the other side of the road, the sound made by inexperienced ninja trying to flee quietly. I looked to either side of me, trying to penetrate the deep shadows with my eyes. Two tiny somethings landed on the side of my face and gave me a faint scratch, and somehow I knew that my other teammate was fine.

I caught glimpses of the other side of the path as I sped along the upper canopy. At first, it was like seeing a bizarre reflection; there was a Yukina there, too, and a Kurei and a Makoto who were all tearing through the trees at a much higher noise level: decoys. I couldn't see Sakura-sensei _or_ that weird shinobi. He _had _to be ninja; that much I knew. He'd had a strong aura, strangely muted, and I had the sinking, disloyal suspicion that he had concealed himself so well that even sensei had missed him before he chose to reveal his presence.

Which was impossible. Sakura-sensei had trained under one of the legendary Sannin, and she was the best.

"Valley of the End," said Kurei. Before either Makoto or I could say "huh?" he added, "We'll wait for Sakura-sensei at the valley. It shouldn't be long."

I nodded in swift agreement. With Kurei's eyes, he should be able to see that.

It was a long run through the forest.

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We broke through the last few trees right as a miniature shockwave rippled through the ground. Small fragments of rock at the edge of the forest clattered back onto the bare earth. Kurei, Makoto, and I stared at each other. I saw my misgivings reflected back at me from two sets of eyes.

We stepped gingerly into the valley. A sudden, forceful wind rushed out of the forest that we had just cleared, shaking the dark leaves with the sound that a shower of rain makes when it pelts the ground.

"I hope sensei's okay."

"Don't worry." Kurei trained his white eyes on me. I couldn't believe I had spoken aloud. "She is." A second later, a fast-moving shape shot out of the blue-black foliage to land several meters ahead of us. Flooded with relief, I ran up to her first. Sakura-sensei crouched there for a moment with one hand braced on the ground. She looked a little battered and like she needed to catch her breath, but not really worse for the wear. Her voice, when she spoke, was as even and calm as always.

"Why did you stop?"

"We – we were worried about you!" I blurted.

Her other hand went to her mouth to catch a small cough. "Ready to go now, everyone?" Before any of us could answer, she coughed again. The sound seemed to come from deep within her chest, rattling against the ribs with an awful loudness. Her hand went to her chest as she bent her head.

I thought that blood that bright a red existed only in the movies. Suddenly it existed in a puddle on the ground, too, and my sensei seemed to have trouble breathing.

"Sakura-sensei!"

Ignoring my exclamation, she took her other hand from the ground and flew through a couple of seals. Her left hand, which now had a faint bluish glow, returned to press against her chest. Her breathing grew softer and less labored.

Now she stood, running her gaze along my face as well as Kurei's and Makoto's. Makoto alone averted his eyes; for once, he looked as uncertain as Kurei and I felt.

"No harm done," my sensei said, "but we should get a move on."

We went only a couple more meters when a massive crash from the forest made us jerk our heads around. An overgrown giant of a tree had toppled to the bare floor of the valley. At the top of the end nearest us, the leafy part, stood the man with the sharp teeth. His arms bulged and swelled with unnatural muscle as he propped his huge sword on the ground. The blade cut into the rock with a solid _thunk_ that echoed off the high valley walls.

He opened his mouth. Out came a shrill, female voice. "Bastard, I told you to stay put!" And then a strange woman with reddish hair showed up out of nowhere to hit him across the face. His head disintegrated with a splash of water. I stared, transfixed and horrified by the sight of his head reforming.

The man scowled. "God, Karin."

"Shut up." The woman's eyes passed slowly over Kurei, me, and Makoto. There was an intensity in her cold gaze that drove away the warmth of the night. It's one thing to look at people and see enemies that one intends to kill. It's another thing to look at people and see things that one intends to dispose of. That was the way it was with her scrutiny. Her attention slid to Sakura-sensei and lingered there.

"So," she said in a voice like winter, "you're the one."

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"Who are you?" My sensei's use of the polite form of address betrayed to me her sincere confusion. A ruthless smile twisted the other woman's face, which might have been pretty otherwise.

"Didn't Sasuke-kun ever tell you who was with him during his two years in the Sound? Or whom he personally asked to come with him when he left?"

"No." Sakura-sensei, as I've mentioned before, has a naturally expressive face. Standing this close to her, I could see a flicker of sadness cross her features before she regained control of them.

"I see." The other woman leapt off the tree and began to walk closer in a half-strut that seemed to be her natural gait. She stopped ten feet away from my sensei and said, without looking back, "Suigetsu, get lost."

"Don't be an ass, Karin. That woman can wipe the floor with you."

"Go to hell!" Her scream took me aback. It brought to mind someone whose sanity dangled by a thread, even while her entire behavior indicated that every one of her words toward Sakura-sensei had been coldly calculated for effect. Shrugging, Suigetsu disappeared with a pop. Karin's wide, dark eyes fixed on Sakura-sensei's face with a murderous concentration. "That fool doesn't know anything about me," she said in a softer tone. "But you seem slightly more intelligent, not that _that's_ any accomplishment." Her red hair slid over her shoulder as she tilted her head. "I'm glad the idiot got to trade a few punches with you, or I wouldn't have believed it – you? The celebrated pupil of the only kunoichi of the Sannin? The one whom they've started to call 'the Immortal' in Earth Country?" She gave a short bark of laughter. "And you don't even look the part."

I'm a person who tends to make snap judgments based on three things: voice, movement, and eyes. I had the feeling that the nasty impression I was forming of this apparently demented woman was not going to change. It's hard to describe exactly how she was like. Maybe a little like bitter medicinal tea that doesn't do any good, or the warning moan of a wasp. Disdain, jealousy, and obsession all prowled behind her hostile eyes. I didn't like the way she was looking at any of us.

"What is any of it to you?" Sakura-sensei's voice glided on the still air. Her left foot shifted slightly.

"You have nothing to do with the Sound. _Nothing._ Why would you accept this mission? _Why you and not him?"_

My sensei didn't relax, but enough training sessions had passed since the day we became a team that I knew she was fighting to maintain her neutral expression. "If you would excuse me, my team and I are on our way out of Sound Country. I have no desire to kill you."

"I'm sure we'll find a satisfying motivation for you before the night is out." Karin brought her hands together in a resounding clap.

"Shit," hissed Kurei. I glanced at him. The veins around his eyes bulged with the increased chakra flow, but I couldn't see anything different about our situation.

"What –"

The air before me blurred, and then a great horned monster came out of nowhere. It was golden-eyed and snarling, hurtling directly for me.

My sensei's gloved fist slammed into its torso. With an audible cracking noise, the beast's ribcage crumpled. It was dead before it hit the valley wall behind it.

"I made plenty more," said Karin indifferently. Before my eyes, the horns, the strangely darkened skin, and the fangs protruding from the lower lip receded. He looked pale and a little pathetic, sprawled on the ground. It was the messenger boy from earlier.

"_This_ is why there weren't any children in the village." The scalding anger in my sensei's voice served to sharpen my perception of the Sound boy. In death, he looked kind of young. Younger than _me_. "You manipulate the village council so that you can steal them and turn them into little demons!"

"If they took to it, that just means that they were demons to begin with." The woman appeared to be enjoying herself for the first time since she had shown up. "Over three-quarters of them die. The ones that survive take to their new abilities like…oh, I hate being cliché, but like fish to water. It doesn't hurt them as much as it did the first ones."

"Don't claim to know how much it hurts," snapped Sakura-sensei, "when you're ruining the lives of other people and not your own."

Karin's smirk was almost feral. "And you would know something about it? Stop joking. There are things you'll _never_ know or understand, Sakura-chan…which is why you're going to die here before the sun rises. Wait, no." She tapped a long, slender finger on her chin. "You're going to watch those three kiddos die first."

I blinked, and suddenly I could see that we were surrounded by a ring of demon-creatures. One of them blocked my view of the dead boy completely. It had a large mouth that looked like someone had taken a knife to its face and slashed it in half. Unnatural violet-red eyes locked onto mine.

I knew it was about to disappear soon – in fact, it was going to go underground and there would be nothing I could do about it. Its clawed hand would smash out of the rock to yank me down into the dark. Except that only my leg would go; it'd tear off at the knee, and while I was screaming in pain and the empty socket gushed blood, it would take off an arm. Perhaps snap off the fingers before wrenching off that limb, too. The pain would be excruciating. I would be begging to die by then…

I heard the words of my mom from a distance – _Only very exceptional girls become __kunoichi__ – _and obviously I wasn't one, and I had only been a kid pretending to be a ninja. She'd known that I was going to die whimpering in fear one day. She had_ known…_

A sharp sting.

"Yukina." Makoto's voice and Kurei's hand on my shoulder both steadied me. The world stopped spinning in swathes of black and crimson. The demon grinned.

They were just eyes, and he was just like the other one. He was only a boy. He was once like me. This was only one of them.

"Don't let their killing intent freeze you up," muttered Kurei. "I nearly got caught myself. Makoto's bugs bailed me out."

"Right," I breathed. There were so many of them.

The one before me surged forward to attack. I knew it was moving so fast that impact would be almost instantaneous. Leaping back into space, I drove my hands through seals that I had taken months to learn, and struck the ground.

The earth before me shot up like a spray of water, forming a thick, solid wall. This was one of the few C-rank techniques that I had fully mastered. Now would be when the demon on the other side slammed into the defensive barrier –

A jagged crack popped onto the side of the wall facing me. Without warning, my earth barrier shattered along a thousand fractures, showering me with shards of sharp-edged rock and dirt. I shouted and ducked, a kunai clutched uselessly in my upraised hand. My mind blanked out in terror.

A flying kick from the right forced the demon to veer off-course. It hit one of its fellows, who snarled and gave it a rough shove. Even before it straightened I knew that Kurei and I were completely outclassed. All I could really do was fight my fierce, instinctual urge to run when Makoto joined us, dodging his original opponent in order to help back our demon into a corner. For an eternity, all we were doing was simply avoiding direct hits. It was amazing that none of us had been seriously injured yet.

A windmill shuriken raked through the air for Makoto's back. I tried to yell a warning but had to fling myself to the side to avoid a demon's claws. My teammate, though, had dodged the weapon – only to receive a deep gash in his side. The demon we were fighting buried his thick arm into my teammate's torso.

Makoto fell apart with a slick, wet sound.

I screamed.

Someone slapped me in the face. It was Kurei, who, pale-faced himself, redirected my attention to the present. Makoto's head, arms, clothes, and legs had all disintegrated into a huge black mass of swarming insect bodies that, after gathering itself, flooded into the monster through its nostrils and open mouth. The demon howled in fury, already shifting back into its human form.

"Yukina, behind!"

I hid in the ground as Kurei leapt at my attacker, and then I Flickered around it to slap around ten tags along its spine. I barely had time to yank Kurei away from the scene before the thing's back exploded in a burst of reddish fire and smoke. As it staggered to its feet, looking dazed and furious, our teammate's bugs took over for us, pouring into the demon through its mouth.

"Remind me never to piss off Makoto," Kurei managed, before an explosive punch from above forced us to split up.

I was going to say something witty when we were side by side again. That was when a stinging pain struck the back of my neck. Makoto? But it was a senbon, and immediately after that, a clawed paw backhanded me across the face. From the other side of the valley issued a scream sharp enough to give me the sensation of having two stakes driven deep into my ears.

My thoughts sped at once to my sensei and I forgot all about the wall that I hit, half a second later.

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I sat up at once. A blinding pain to match the stinging needles traveling up my spine to my neck burst into my forehead. My vision slowly returned in specks and unfocused lights. The sky looked too dark and enclosing. Kurei leaned against the wall, rubbing his forehead. His eyes were narrowed in agony.

"Sorry. What happened?"

"We're in a cave."

I raised my head, locating the exit quickly by the only source of the bluish ambient light. "I know _that._"

"You hit the rocks and blacked out." Kurei sounded completely exhausted; his words came reluctantly through a screen of fatigue. "I didn't know what to do because if either Makoto or I tried to carry you out we'd all get flattened for sure. We were going to head the thing off anyway, but then…"

"Yeah?" I struggled with my legs for a bit until my body responded enough for me to crawl nearer the opening and Makoto, who crouched at the entrance in a guard position. The sounds of battle outside seemed vague and far away. My ears still rang with that hideous scream.

"Sakura-sensei appeared behind it. She just…touched it at the base of its skull and then it went all wonky. I could tell that it wanted to make a few seals, but it stuck out its foot and fell flat on its face… the chakra flow was all wrong. Sakura-sensei told us that there was a cave further along – I think this used to be an impression left by someone's attack, a long time ago. She told us to bring you into the cave and take out a needle from behind your neck. After that, she said to bandage up Makoto's wound…

"I wanted to go back loads of times." Kurei wouldn't meet my eyes. "But Makoto wouldn't let me out. I'm…I'm glad he didn't."

I gave him a small smile that he returned feebly. "Me too." The surface of the cave walls was uneven and painfully hard. One particular lump dug into my back. I glanced at the teammate who had been silent all this time. "Makoto, is your wound okay?"

"It's stopped bleeding."

"What's going on out there?" From my vantage point, I could only see the valley wall opposite us. The fight was taking place at the other end.

"Sakura-sensei's holding up," he said at last. "I think when she touches them, she disrupts the electrical signals from the brain to the body. She leaves them alive…" His soft exhalation betrayed a hitch in his breathing; his wound still pained him. "My bugs tell me that when her chakra's running low, she takes some from the ones she incapacitated."

An uneasy, exhausted quiet fell over the cave. Unexpectedly, Makoto spoke again. "Yukina, Kurei, if you lent my bugs some of your chakra, I could send a few back to Konoha."

"Would they make it?"

He sighed, another alarming indicator of weariness for Makoto. "Possibly."

"I'm in," I said. Kurei nodded.

A faint breeze blew in from the entrance and brought with it a heavier, wet coolness. Somewhere out there, my sensei was fighting in the rain.

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TBC


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes**: I was rifling through my Naruto things, and then got around to rereading this. It's ridiculous how I left it hanging. I apologize if the following isn't up to par, but at the same time, I thought everyone who has read chapters 1-8 deserved better than utter abandonment. Thanks for your patience, guys! I'll be editing some stuff, so if something significant changes in this chapter, I'll make a note of it in the next update.

**Disclaimer: **Nah…it's not mine. Fooled you, didn't I? (What with the rarity of NEJI. ;_;) Again, this fic has probably become AU, since Sasuke is leading _all_ of "Hawk" to Konoha in canon, Pein demolished almost everything (making a statement in Chapter 5 false), Hinata declared for Naruto, and Tsunade's time as the Hokage got interrupted. You know what? There are too many things to point out individually. I'm just going to incorporate what I can from canon. (**EDITED:** Pronoun of the Hokage. When Yukina is 12, the Hokage in this story is still Tsunade, one of the AU elements in this story.)

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"Let's go back," I said.

Kurei glanced at me, then jerked his head at the exhausted Makoto. _What about this one? _he seemed to ask. Tellingly enough, Makoto hadn't said anything.

I lowered my voice. "Is he asleep?"

"No," said Makoto.

"We have to check on sensei – "

"No."

Now even Kurei stared at him like he had sprouted fur, antennae, and a carapace all at once. "What do you mean, 'no'?"

Silhouetted against the dim sky, Makoto's face was barely visible. He was so tired that he looked practically expressionless. "Sakura-sensei's last order to me was to keep you guys safely away."

We exploded at him. "Safely away?" Kurei shouted. "We can fight! We _did _fight! We have to go back!"

"'Last order'? Stop making it out as though Sakura-sensei's not coming back!" I threw myself at Makoto, trying to get past him in the most brutish, desperate way possible.

I'd expected some resistance. He toppled back instead, my weight bearing him outside of the cave. Just before we crashed onto the rocky ground, I remembered that one of the demons had dealt Makoto a crippling blow. I Flickered off to the side in time to avoid landing on my teammate.

Barely an inch off the ground, Makoto twisted in mid-air and managed to land on his hands and knees. Looking at him right then, suppressing a shudder of pain, I felt absolutely horrible.

"Makoto – I'm so sorry – I forgot – "

"You didn't forget." He spoke in a low voice between his harsh breathing. "So you've forced your way out. What are you going to do?"

Kurei had leapt down from the mouth of the cave. When he saw us like that – Makoto in his weakened state, and me watching at him from a few feet's distance – he had hesitated, but now he came closer. "We have to find our sensei."

"Then leave me here! Go! Some team this is."

Only when Makoto said that did I realize how angry he was. "It's not that we want to leave you," I started, "it's that we have to see what's happened. Can't you understand? "

"Don't _you _understand?" he snapped, pushing himself onto his feet. Kurei and I both twitched towards him, but his glare froze us in place. "We're just kids! This wasn't ever really about us. That woman _hates _our sensei for personal reasons, and those demons under her command fight on a higher level than what we can handle. One-on-one, maybe we'd survive. If we go now, we'll just get in Sakura-sensei's way."

"So you want us to just hang around and let our sensei do _everything?_"

Makoto had to understand what I left unvoiced: What if she _can't _do everything?

"Makoto," said Kurei, "we are a _team_. And Sakura-sensei's one of us! She's Team Four as much as any of us here. We have to go back!"

The next moment, all three of us felt an aura so terrible and violent that our argument halted mid-word. Whatever I had opened my mouth to say shriveled in the damp air. The chill that swept over my bare arms and along my spine raised every hair on my skin. In that instant, I felt a brush of wind. Someone had passed by us very quickly.

After several seconds, the instinctive terror we had all felt began to recede into the persistent haze of rain. Kurei spoke first. "Damn. That was scary." His voice was hushed.

I rubbed my arms. "Who was it?"

Out of all of us, Kurei was the only one who had actually seen what had just sprinted past our small group. When no answer came from the Hyuuga, I turned to Makoto. A kikai bug rested in his palm.

"Uchiha," he said.

I felt the chill return, but hid it. "_Now_ can we go after Sakura-sensei?"

After a moment, Makoto nodded. Kurei and I slid one of his arms each over our shoulders before he could protest and bounded forward. Ahead of us, the clouds continued to gather, darkening the sky to midnight blue. Sheet lightning flashed, temporarily blinding. The thunder that followed shook the valley floor beneath my feet.

"Hey…Kurei."

He responded from across from Makoto. "Yeah?"

"It should be over by now, right?"

Kurei might act all manly sometimes and pretend he could comfort the one girl on Team Four with confident words, but this was one occasion where he held his tongue. I wouldn't have believed him anyway.

My open-toed sandal splashed into a sizeable puddle as we pulled up ten meters from the gruesome scene of carnage. There were, quite literally, bodies everywhere. I glanced around wildly.

No sign of Sakura-sensei.

"Makoto!" I was this close to full-blown panic. "Can you see her? Where do you think –"

The ground exploded into a thousand jagged fragments of rock. I kept my grip on Makoto by sheer reflex and leaped into the air. Fortunately, Kurei did likewise. For a split second, we could see everything, including the two fighters that had abruptly materialized. A pale-haired blur caught my eye.

"Sakura-sensei!" I shouted.

I might as well have rammed a kunai in her stomach. Her concentration splintered, letting the bizarre, dark-skinned creature she'd been keeping at bay get under her guard. It extended its hand and reached through Sakura-sensei's torso. Five claws protruded from her back, curved and bloody.

A scream ripped out of my lungs. Kurei yanked Makoto - and by extension, me – off to the side as Sakura-sensei's body arced through the air and slammed into the ground not two feet from our previous location. I dropped onto my knees, horrified.

_Get up!_ I implored. _Move! _

I watched helplessly as the thing that I somehow recognized as Karin approached my sensei's body and slammed an open-palmed hand into the ground. The rock under her burst open and shattered. Large, sharp pieces fell back down onto Sakura-sensei. She didn't even try to twist out of the way. I could only stare in stunned silence. Beside me, my teammates stood as if they were rooted to the spot.

Karin laughed. "How do you like that?" Her eyes, wild and crimson, drifted lazily to Kurei, Makoto, and me. In contrast, she sounded conversational, even detached.

She'd accomplished what she had wanted. Sakura-sensei was dead.

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I put my head down and started crying in earnest - crying as I never had since I had turned four. Since I had met Sakura-sensei. I felt one of my teammates' hand on my shoulder, but I couldn't stop. Unlike them, I had called out and distracted Sakura-sensei. I didn't care if I had lost all my dignity or pride as a ninja. I should have stayed away from the Ninja Academy. Maybe then, she would be alive.

"Yukina…get up." Makoto repeated my name as I bent over on the ground, shaking with all the guilt and shock that kept the image of my sensei's limp body before my eyes.

It was Kurei's heartfelt expletive that wrenched my head up.

I saw Karin first. The effects of the technique she'd used to transform herself had faded, leaving her face starkly pale and weary. Her red hair only emphasized the pallid tone of her skin. Her stare guided my own eyes to the taller, black-clad figure in front of her.

"Sasuke-sama," she breathed, reaching for him.

He just looked at her. Whatever she saw in his face made her withdraw her hand. But she didn't move away.

"You know why I'm here," Karin said. "You told me before that you had reasons for going back to your village. Well…you've had your revenge. The man who ordered the death of your clan is gone. I can see that you were chafing under those fools…so why didn't you come back to us?"

A brief flash of lightning lit the sky again. I blinked hard. Those could not be tears in that woman's eyes.

"We were with you the whole time. As Hebi, and then as Taka. _We were your team!_"

I flinched so violently that Kurei's hand fell from my shoulder. Of all the emotions I thought I could feel for Karin, I hadn't expected to feel understanding.

They were a team?

Makoto stood near enough to hear me mutter in disbelief. He shot me an inscrutable look.

"What a bastard," I whispered, furious. "He left his teammates behind – twice!"

He seemed to sigh. A tiny, ironic smile, mostly a grimace, tugged at the corner of his mouth. "Sometimes people do that."

I spun around. "We didn't – I didn't do that to you, Makoto! That's not fair. And Sakura-sensei was out there and…" And it was my fault. My breath hitched. "I'm so sorry, Makoto. I should have died before I hit you and – and then caused Sakura-sensei to..." I couldn't finish that sentence.

"Stop blubbering, okay?" interjected Kurei. "It's not your fault, it's all our fault, since we all agreed to go back for sensei. Sort of. Anyway…" Despite his brittle stoicism, Kurei didn't sound as sure or steady as his tone suggested.

"I was wrong," said Makoto. He glanced down at me. "Sakura-sensei was mistaken to think she could order us to abandon her. You guys were right."

"Not that it matters now," I finished numbly. We were all very quiet then, a heavy silence settling over us. I had to return my attention to the adults' conversation to distract myself from tearing up.

"We want you back," said Karin.

"Speak for yourself," said another voice.

All my danger-senses flared in warning.

Suigetsu sauntered over to stand a short distance from Karin, oversized sword propped on his shoulder. "Don't you see, Karin? He's not coming back with you."

"Shut up," she said, her eyes still fixed on Sasuke. He gave off such a cold aura, even though I couldn't see his face from here. How could he stand so impassively when Sakura-sensei was dead? I remembered the night that my brother had gone to egg his house. Didn't Sasuke remember that? She was the only woman who would ever have asked him to have lunch. While everyone else, every other sane person in Konoha, gave his street a wide berth, she offered him friendship and trust.

_She would have given him more than that_, a needling internal voice told me.

"_That's what I heard he said," Ayame told me. "'I don't give a flying – a flying fuck.' That's what everyone heard. He definitely said that."_

Anger washed over me. I took a step towards Sasuke, barely aware of what I was doing. Before my teammates snapped out of their stupor to interfere, I had bellowed my thoughts at Uchiha Sasuke.

"You're disgusting, you know that? You're trash! Konoha doesn't want you or need you! And now Sakura-sensei's dead! Did you hear me?" I almost couldn't get the words out. My voice wobbled. "She's dead! So just get lost! _Go _with them! Nobody – gives – a – flying – fuck – about – you!"

An almighty yank on my arm had me staggering backwards. Makoto and Kurei had run up to drag me off. "Yukina, are you insane?" Kurei hissed in my ear.

I kept my eyes on Sasuke. "I mean it," I spat. "Get lost!"

It was the rain. I knew it had to be the rain making my vision blur. I knew I wanted to hurt that man more than I had ever wanted to hurt another human being, and I'd wanted it so badly that I actually imagined him flinch slightly after I had hurled everything I could think of at him.

The flat monotone of his voice proved my common sense right. He ignored me – and Karin's earlier appeal – completely, addressing Suigetsu. "You hated her," he said without preamble. "Why would you stay with Karin?"

Sasuke's face was hard to see from where I stood, but Karin blurted, "Sasuke-sama, you're bleeding…"

Suigetsu cut over her. "Same reason you're crying blood." The unnatural line of his mouth twisted in a wry grimace. "It's easy to explain, but neither of us would like to, eh?"

At that, Karin's gaze flashed to the pale-haired man beside her, something like amazement behind her eyes. "What the hell does that mean?" she demanded.

"If you're as dumb as you look, you don't deserve to know." He went on as she spluttered. "I'm saving your ass." He glanced at the sky with a nonchalance that I had a hunch was totally fake. "Great night for a lightning storm, isn't it?"

Sarcasm and sincerity went over the Uchiha in the same manner. "What happened in Oto?"

The other man shrugged. "I had nothing to do with it. Karin just…you know how she is. She wanted to see you that badly." He tried to say something else, but a brutal punch from Karin shattered his head into a shapeless spray of water. He was cursing as his head reformed.

"Hey!" I screamed. My teammates started tugging on my arms again. "What about Sakura-sensei? You unbelievable assholes! You – "

"Shut up!" All three of them snapped.

There was something to be said about getting yelled at by an insane, demonic woman, a shark-faced water-monster, and a former traitor who was bleeding from his eyes. I shut up.

"We'll get out of the country." Suigetsu had a hugely fake, pleasant air about him. "Call up the local hunter-nin to clean this up, if you like. Karin, time to go."

"What? No!" She wrenched her arm out of his grasp. "I'm not leaving until Sasuke-sama answers me!"

Suigetsu looked ready to seize her by the hair. "You idiotic bitch! Do you really want him to fry us with Kirin? You saw how it was, even from that distance!"

She persisted. "Do you _like_ living in Konoha, Sasuke-sama? Where everyone treats you like dirt? Where _stupid little girls_ go around running their mouth about things they don't know?"

"I don't see that it would be any different if I came with you."

It was the first sentence he had actually said to Karin. Looking at her face, I thought she might cry. "What has that village ever given you? What could it ever give you?" When he didn't reply, she answered for him. "Nothing! That girl you were always thinking about before you left us – she can't even hold a candle to what we had! Look at her!" I saw Sasuke stiffen and Suigetsu's eyes widen. I retreated from them, to the relief of Makoto and Kurei, but Karin steamrollered on. "I know you. I know you value strength, but can't you see how weak and unworthy she is? _I _killed her. Not Suigetsu, not those pathetic children from Oto – me!"

"Let's go!" shouted Suigetsu. He grabbed Karin by the shoulders and pulled her away. She fought him for a second, then went still. In a strange parody of what was happening, Kurei yanked me further away.

"What – "

"Her chakra's going wild. Run!"

I spun on my heel and pelted for cover. A bright light streaked over my shoulder, striking vertically from above. I heard rocks split; hard-edged chips flew in every direction, stinging the back of my legs. The air smelled metallic and bitter, like a shorted circuit. Kurei stopped without warning, and I smashed into him and Makoto.

"Ow!"

"Sorry!" I turned around.

There was a medium-sized crater where Suigetsu, Sasuke, and Karin had been standing. Its circumference ended right before it reached my foot. A shiver overpowered me. I'd run exactly far enough to avoid getting hit.

Common sense pulled me back down from my survivor's high. No. The lightning had been controlled just so that I wouldn't get hit.

Sasuke landed lightly on his feet at the same time that Suigetsu did, Karin's limp body in his arms.

"Get out of here," said Sasuke. It sounded curiously familiar to my ears.

"Sasuke." Suigetsu paused. "I hate to say this, but she's right about one thing. Konoha's holding you back."

He hoisted Karin over his shoulder and sprang off towards the forest.

A stray breeze glided over my skin, and I realized that I was freezing. The valley looked different once the ninja from the Land of the Sound had gone. The mist no longer seemed so oppressive.

"The rain's stopped," said Makoto.

A memory flickered through my mind: the rain – my sensei, fighting in the rain –

"She's dead," I heard myself mumble. "Sakura-sensei…"

I staggered in the direction where she had fallen. I felt like a sleepwalker, cut off from my surroundings. My sensei was gone, and nothing would bring her back. Not rain, not lightning, not tears.

Someone got there before me – Uchiha Sasuke. He cleared away the debris faster than should have been humanly possible. Within minutes, he had unearthed Sakura-sensei. While he worked in complete silence, I noticed how quick his hands were, almost frantic.

A hysterical laugh bubbled out of me. _Uchiha Sasuke _was totally worried.

He cared.

He laid Sakura-sensei out on the ground and wiped some of the blood off her face with his bandaged hands. I wondered what he was doing, raising her head like that, but it was so he could take off her forehead protector.

Beside me, Kurei stirred. "Whoa…"

I gave him a sharp glance. "_What?_"

He jerked his head. "Look."

The dark streaks on Sakura-sensei's face that I had taken to be blood were glowing. They seemed to radiate out from her forehead. I hadn't seen it before Sasuke removed her forehead protector, but now the strange lines on her skin looked like an activated seal.

That was impossible. If her chakra was still active…

My eyes moved to where her shirt had torn at her abdomen. There was too much blood caked over the cloth and skin to be sure, but a painful, brilliant hope lanced through me.

She opened her eyes.

I squealed and threw my arms around the nearest person. Kurei staggered back. "She's alive! She's okay! She's alive!"

Kurei wheezed. "Yeah – yeah, I know – Yukina…I can't breathe."

I was laughing and crying so hard that it was a miracle that I saw Makoto's wide smile, too. "Hey! Stop acting all manly and crap, will you? Sakura-sensei's alive!"

Kurei fought me off, unable to suppress the giant, unmanly beam wreathing his face. "Okay, okay. Can we go home now?"

I quieted down as we looked to our sensei for instructions.

She had eased into a sitting position. Underneath all the relief that swamped me, I still felt plenty of guilt. If I hadn't shouted, she wouldn't have had to exhaust her chakra supply to heal that ugly wound in her midriff.

She looked to either side of her, hunting for something. Her eyes landed on the forehead protector in Sasuke's hand. I jumped when I saw the dark, bloody tracks that had run from his soot-colored eyes. His fingers seemed to tighten around her forehead protector.

"You let Karin get that far, for what?"

If I had hoped for sobbing and a dramatic reconciliation – well, that was the epitaph on its gravestone. His voice was as wintry as ever.

"I wanted to see what I'd done to deserve her hatred." Sakura-sensei lacked the spark she usually had. Her green eyes passed over her surroundings, unseeing and dull. She closed them, a soft sigh escaping from her mouth. "And I wanted to know what you did to gain _her _loyalty." Her eyes snapped open again. She trained a stare bitterer than any I had ever seen on Sasuke. "I guess we were both just stupid little girls."

Sasuke stood, dropping her forehead protector. It made a muffled scraping sound when it hit the ground. "I won't argue with that," he said flatly.

Sakura-sensei reached for her forehead protector and secured it behind her head. "It's been six years. I thought it would get better, but it hasn't."

"What did you expect?"

I felt the old rage waking in me at his scathing tone. He had _no right._

"Did you think I'd make promises of undying love?"

I cried out in alarm as my sensei leaped to her feet and rounded on Sasuke. She was in no state for a confrontation. "Why are you still here, Sasuke? Is there something you want from me?" She took a step forward. He didn't take a step back, so it brought the two of them closer. "Oh, I see…you want me to say it's all right, Konoha is only holding you back, so you might as well leave?"

I heard, rather than saw Sasuke's temper snap. "I didn't ask for anything! I never told you to waste your time waiting for me. Don't you see that's why I had to leave you behind?"

"That's not the issue anymore! I'm not – " She lowered her voice. It was as if she'd just remembered Makoto, Kurei, and I were listening to all of this. "I'm not that girl who'll follow you to the ends of the earth anymore. I've found what's precious to me, and it's in Konoha." She glanced over to where we were waiting, unsure and anxious, and I bit my lip. She was talking about Team Four, too.

"If you want to leave, Sasuke, then go." I heard the words struggle in her throat, like I had forced mine out when I was yelling at Sasuke. "If you do…I won't look for you." She met his eyes. "I'm not going to wait."

"Good."

I sucked in a breath, but all Sakura-sensei did was bite her thumb to draw blood for a summon. She didn't look at Sasuke now, instead focusing on the bizarre, cat-sized slug on her shoulder. "Please let the Hokage know that the Valley of the End requires her attention."

The slug waggled its eyestalks and disappeared. "Team!" said Sakura-sensei. "We're moving out."

She kept walking even after she passed us. One by one, Kurei, Makoto, and I fell in after her. We took our cue from Sakura-sensei, lengthening our strides until we were bounding forward with chakra-laced steps. Finally, we were leaving.

I wasn't as strong as Sakura-sensei. I glanced over my shoulder.

Sasuke stood alone in the wreckage of the valley, the ground around him littered with the inert bodies of Oto's children. I could glimpse the thin, dark line of blood drying on his cheek. The next time I stole a glance behind me was when a team of masked Anbu intercepted us en route to Konoha. By then, he was out of sight.

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Sakura-sensei didn't turn around to face us until we arrived at the gates. Even then, I thought that her green eyes looked over-bright and glassy. I had the feeling that she had kept them on the road home throughout the journey back. I wanted to ask her if she was okay, but she dropped us all off at the hospital with the promise to check in on Makoto after reporting to the Hokage.

A medic-nin kicked me and Kurei out of the room so that she could patch up our teammate without distractions. We were sitting glumly in the hallway outside the room when the last person I expected to see thundered past, swinging an offensively neon-green bucket.

"Eiji!"

He had hurtled past me before it registered. His shoes skidded over the tiled floor. "Yukina-neesan, you're back!"

My eyes narrowed. Obvious statement: check. Furtive sideways glance: check. Useless hiding of hands (and bucket) behind his back: check. I knew these symptoms. Heck, he'd learnt them all from me. "What are you doing here?"

"I, uh, I was gonna give this to my friend. Wasn't at all the usual places, so I thought I'd try here." Reluctantly, he showed me the bucket's contents.

I blinked. Sometimes my brother's thought processes were so bizarre that they robbed me of speech. "Um…Eiji. First of all, you'd better learn to keep your stray pet out of the hospital. Animals aren't allowed here…Hey! I'm not done!" He had started scampering down the hallway, bucket in hand. I called after him. "And you'll make your pet sick!" I glanced at Kurei. "It's probably a cat," I told him. "If he feeds it tomatoes…"

Just then, the medic emerged. "All done. You guys can go in and talk to your teammate, but remember, he needs to rest after that."

Battered-looking though he was, Kurei smirked. "Come on, Yukina. Let's check up on bug-boy." So I left my worries and suspicions outside the door and walked into Makoto's room, where the rest of Team Four was waiting.

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TBC


End file.
